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diff --git a/old/67748-0.txt b/old/67748-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4fc1e0e..0000000 --- a/old/67748-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10484 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scientific Sprague, by Francis Lynde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Scientific Sprague - -Author: Francis Lynde - -Illustrator: E. Roscoe Shrader - -Release Date: March 31, 2022 [eBook #67748] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, with thanks to the University of Colorado, - Boulder, for providing a scan of the cover, and the Online - Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This - file was made using scans of public domain works put online - by Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC SPRAGUE *** - - - - - - Scientific Sprague - - BY - - FRANCIS LYNDE - - _ILLUSTRATED BY_ - E. ROSCOE SHRADER - - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - NEW YORK :::::::::: 1912 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - Published October, 1912 - - - - -BOOKS BY FRANCIS LYNDE -PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - - Scientific Sprague. Illus. 12mo _net_ $1.25 - The Price. 12mo _net_ $1.30 - The Taming of Red Butte Western. Illus. 12mo $1.50 - The King of Arcadia. Illus. 12mo $1.50 - A Romance in Transit. 16mo .75 - - - - -[Illustration: Where another man might have asked questions, he stood -aside and looked on and listened.] - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. THE WIRE-DEVIL 3 - - II. HIGH FINANCE IN CROMARTY GULCH 57 - - III. THE ELECTROCUTION OF TUNNEL NUMBER - THREE 120 - - IV. THE MYSTERY OF THE BLACK BLIGHT 193 - - V. THE CLOUD-BURSTERS 253 - - VI. THE HIGH KIBOSH 328 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Where another man might have asked questions, he - stood aside and looked on and listened _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - Thanks to the man with the red lantern, there were - half a dozen car-lengths to spare between the two - trains when the double stop was made 18 - - Brushing them aside with his mighty weight or driving - them before him like chaff in the fury of his onset 108 - - Sprague had unlimbered and focussed his camera again - and was calmly taking snap-shot after snap-shot 270 - - - - -Scientific Sprague - - -I - -The Wire-Devil - - -CONNOLLY, off-trick division despatcher, doubling on the early night -trick for Jenner, whose baby was sick, snapped his key-switch at the -close of a rapid fire of orders sent to straighten out a freight-train -tangle on the Magdalene district, sat back in his chair, and reached -for his corn-cob pipe with a fat man’s sigh of relief. - -Over in the corner of the bare, dingy office, Bolton, night man on -the car-record wire, was rattling away at his type-writer; and on the -wall opposite the despatcher’s table the electrically timed standard -clock was ticking off the minutes between eight-fifty-five and nine. -While Connolly was striking a match to light his pipe, Bolton tore the -type-written sheet out of his machine and twisted himself in his chair -to ask a question. - -“What’s the good word from the Apache Limited?” he inquired, his -evil little eyes blinking indecently. And then, before Connolly -could reply: “It’s up to me to ‘buy’ for the boys to-night. My little -girl-doll is comin’ on the Apache. Whadda you know about that: chasin’ -me all the way from little old New York.” - -The fat despatcher knew precisely where the Limited was, but he glanced -at his train-sheet from sheer force of habit. - -“On time at Angels, double-heading with the Nine-thirteen, and the -Six-five,” he said. Then he shifted over to the car-record man’s cause -for jubilation. “I didn’t know you were a married man, Bolton. If I -ever get out of the woods and make good on the job, I’m going to do it -myself.” - -Bolton’s mouth widened like a split in a parchment mask, and his laugh -was a dry cackle. - -“Married--that’s a bully good joke. I’ll have to tell it to the little -doll-girl, when she comes.” - -Connolly was Irish chiefly by virtue of his name. He entirely missed -the pointing of the car-record man’s remark, but the apparent gibe -touched his vanity and his round and naturally ruddy face grew a shade -darker. - -“Meaning that no girl with half a chance at other fellows would look -twice at a fat slouch like me? That’s where you’re off your trolley. -There is one, Barry, and she’s pretty enough to make a wooden-Indian -cigar-sign get down from his block and chase her up the street for -another look-in. But I’ve got to make good and pull down a wad, first.” - -The car-record man’s laugh this time was an unchaste sneer. - -“Aw, chuck it!” he derided. “Whadda you want to tie yourself up for -when there’s plenty of----” - -“Say, that’ll do,” Connolly broke in, with a frown of cleanly disgust, -taking Bolton’s meaning at last. Then he changed the subject abruptly. -“Mr. Maxwell’s got him a new chum: seen him?” - -Bolton nodded. - -“Sure, I have; couldn’t help seein’ him if you happened to look his -way. What is he?--champion All-America heavy-weight?” - -The despatcher shook his head. “College professor, somebody said; one -of Mr. Maxwell’s classmates. Specializes in something or other; I -didn’t hear what.” - -Again the tag-wire operator’s laugh crackled like a snapping of dry -twigs. He had risen from his chair and was half-sitting, half-leaning, -upon his table-desk, his hands resting palms down, with the fingers -curled under the table edge--his characteristic loafing attitude. - -“He might specialize in any old thing,” he jeered, with a small man’s -bickering hostility for a big one in his tone. “All he’s got to do is -to reach out and take it; nobody but a fellow in the Joe Gans class’d -have the nerve to tell him not to. I saw him sittin’ on the Topaz -porch with the super as I came over. He’s so big it made me sick at my -stomach to look at him.” - -Connolly’s pipe had gone out, burned out, and he was feeling in his -pockets for the tobacco sack. While he was doing it the corridor door -opened and Calmaine, the superintendent’s chief clerk, came in, let -himself briskly through the gate in the counter railing, and leaned -over Connolly’s shoulder to glance at the train-sheet. - -“Everything moving along all right, Dan?” he asked. - -“Is now,” said the despatcher, still feeling absently for the missing -tobacco sack. “Twenty-one and Twenty-eight got balled up on their -orders over on the other side of the range, but I guess I’ve got ’em -straightened out, after so long a time.... Now what the dickens did I -do with that tobacco of mine, I wonder?” - -“Have a cigar,” said the chief clerk, laying one on the glass-topped -wire-table. Calmaine, eastern trunk-line bred, had been inclined to -cockiness when he came West, but a year with Maxwell, whose standing -was that of the Short Line’s best-beloved tyrant, had taken a good deal -of it out of him. - -“Thanks,” returned Connolly, with a fat man’s grin, “not for me when -I’m despatching trains. The corn-cob goes with the job. Sit in here on -the wire for a minute while I go up to the bunk-room and look in my -other coat.” - -Calmaine took the vacated chair and ran his eye along the latest -additions to the many columns of figures on the train-sheet. Bolton in -his far corner was still loafing, though his night’s work of taking and -typing the wire car reports from the various stations on the double -division was scarcely begun. “You think you’re a little tin god on -wheels, don’t you?” he muttered under his breath, blinking and scowling -across at the well-groomed young man sitting in Connolly’s chair. “You -can let down with Dan Connolly all right, but when it comes to throwin’ -a bone to the other new dog, you ain’t it. One o’ these times I’m goin’ -to jump up and bite you.” - -The object of this splenetic outburst was still bending over the -train-sheet, abstractedly unconscious of Bolton’s presence. From the -conductors’ room beyond the wire office three or four trainmen drifted -in to look over the bulletin-board notices; and still Connolly did not -return. - -Suddenly the sounder in front of the substitute set up a furious -chatter, clicking out a monotonous repetition of the “G.S.” call, -breaking at intervals with the signature “Ag,” the code letters for -Angels, the desert-edge town from which the Apache Limited had been -last reported. Calmaine flicked his key-switch and cut in quickly with -the answering signal. Then, reaching for pad and pen, he wrote out the -message that came boiling over the wire. - - “G.S. - - “Apache Limited in ditch at Lobo Cut four miles west. Both engines - crumpled up. Two enginemen, one route agent, under wreck. Everything - off but rear Pullman. Train on fire and lot of passengers pinned down. - Hurry help quick. - - “AG.” - -Calmaine was an alert young man, well abreast of his job and altogether -capable. But before he could yelp twice Connolly had come in, and it -was the fat despatcher who gave the alarm. - -“My Lord, Bolton--see here!” he shouted, pushing Calmaine aside as an -incumbrance. And then, when the car-record man came over to stare -vacantly at the fateful message: “Get a move! Send somebody after -Mr. Maxwell, quick! Then get busy on that yard wire and turn out the -wrecking crew. Get Dawson on the ’phone and tell him I’ll have a clear -track for him by the time his wreck-wagons are ready! Jump at it, man! -Your wife isn’t the only one that’s needing help! _Wake up!_” - -Over on the sidewalk loggia porch of the Hotel Topaz fronting the -electric-lighted railroad plaza, Maxwell, the division superintendent, -was sitting out the evening with a broad-shouldered, solidly built -young man whose big frame, clear gray eyes, and fighting jaw were the -outward presentments of a foot-ball “back” rather than those of the -traditional college professor. - -“I don’t mind piping myself off to you, Dick, though the full size of -my job isn’t generally known,” the athletic-looking stop-over guest was -saying. “You got the first part of it right; I’m down on the Department -of Agriculture pay-rolls as a chemistry sharp. But outside of that I’ve -half a dozen little hobbies which they let me ride now and then. You’ll -guess what one of them is when I tell you that I was the man who fried -out the evidence in the post-office cases last winter.” - -“What!” exclaimed Maxwell. “But your name didn’t appear.” - -The big man with the smooth-shaven, boyish face smiled contentedly. - -“My name never appears. That is the high card in the game. So far as -that goes, I never mess or meddle in the police details. My part of -the job is always and only the theoretical stunt. They come to me and -I tell ’em what to do. And just about half the time they haven’t the -least idea why they are doing it.” - -“Say, Calvin; that interests me a lot more than you know,” was the -young superintendent’s eager comment. “I wish you didn’t have to go -on to the coast to-morrow morning. We’ve developed an original little -Chinese puzzle of our own here in the Timanyoni that is pretty nearly -driving the last one of us wild-eyed. If you could stop over----” - -The interruption came in the shape of a one-armed man with a lantern, -sprinting like a base-runner across from the railroad building to the -hotel. It was the night watchman summoned by the despatcher, and ten -seconds later he had delivered his message. - -“The Lord have mercy!” gasped the superintendent, bounding out of his -chair, “the Limited?--in the ditch and on fire, you say? For Heaven’s -sake, where?” - -“’Tis at Lobo Cut; ’tis Angels reporting it, sorr, so Misther Connolly -did be saying. He’s clearing f’r the wreck-train now, and he axed would -you be coming over.” - -“Tell him I’ll be over in a minute or two: as soon as I’ve called up -the hospital and turned out the doctors.” - -“Yis, sorr; but Misther Bolton’s doing that same now. They do be saying -his wife’s on the train, and he’s _that_ near crazy.” - -Maxwell turned to his guest. - -“You see how it is with us poor railroad devils, Calvin. It’s a bad -case of ‘have to,’ and I know you’ll excuse me. Just the same, it’s an -infernal outrage--when we haven’t been able to get together for a dog’s -age.” - -The chemistry sharp, as he had called himself, was standing up and -stretching his arms over his head like a pole-vaulter hardening his -muscles for the jump. - -“I’ll trot over to your shop with you, Dick, if you don’t object,” he -said good-naturedly. “I want to see what happens when you get a hurry -call like this.” - -In the despatcher’s office Connolly was hammering at his key like a -madman, with the sweat running down his full-moon face and the hand -which was not in use shaking as if the left half of him had been -ague-smitten. Trainmen were coming and going, and the alarm whistle -at the shops was bellowing the wreck call at ten-second intervals. -Everybody made way for Maxwell when he pushed through the counter gate -with his big guest at his heels. - -“Any more news, Dan?” - -The despatcher flicked his closing switch, and immediately the ague -spread to the hand which was no longer steadied on the key. - -“Nothing. I’ve been clearing, and everything is getting out of the way. -I’ve tried twice to get Angels, but I can’t raise anybody. I guess -Garner, the operator, has set his signals at block and gone to gather -up what help he can find.” - -Just then more men came crowding in from the corridor, and one of them, -a small man with hot eyes and a harsh voice, barked at Connolly. - -“Orders for the wreck-wagons, Dan; we’re ready to go.” - -Out of the throng behind the counter barrier Bolton, yellow-faced and -ghastly, fought his way to the gate and besought the superintendent. - -“Let me go, too, Mr. Maxwell!” he panted. “My God! I’ve got to go!” - -“Of course, you shall go, Barry,” said the superintendent with quick -kindliness, remembering what the watchman had said about Bolton’s wife -being on the ditched train. “Dan, send the caller after Catherton and -let him take Bolton’s wire.” Then he turned to his guest, who had -been standing aside and looking on with a level-eyed gaze that lost -no detail. “It’s hello and good-by for us, Sprague, old man; that is, -unless you’d care to go along?” - -The guest decided instantly. “I was just about to ask you if you -couldn’t count me in,” he returned; and together they followed the -rough-tongued little conductor in a hurried dash for the platform. - -The wrecking-train had been backed down to the station spur to take on -the hospital car, and it was standing ready for the eastward flight; -two flat-cars loaded with blocking and tackle, a desert tank-car filled -with water, two work-train boxes crowded to the doors with men, and, -next to the engine, which was one of the big “Pacific types” used on -the fast mail runs, a heavy steam crane powerful enough to lift a -locomotive and swing it clear at a single hitch. - -“Who’s pulling us, Blacklock?” Maxwell asked, overtaking the little man -with the hot eyes. - -“Young Cargill.” - -Maxwell turned to Sprague. - -“I’m going on the engine, Calvin. There’s room for you if you care -to try it. If you don’t, I’ll turn you over to Dawson, our master -mechanic, and he’ll make you at home in the doctors’ car.” - -“I guess I’m in for all of it,” was the even-toned reply, and they ran -forward to climb to the cab of the big mail flyer. - -“My friend, Mr. Sprague, Cargill,” snapped Maxwell, introducing the -stranger to the handsome young fellow in overalls and jumper perched -upon the high right-hand seat, and Cargill pulled off his glove to -shake hands. - -“You’ll find the Ten-sixteen a pretty hard rider,” he began; but -Maxwell cut him short. - -“You have a clear track, and Blacklock’s got your orders. Open her up -and see what you can do. It’s a plain case of ‘get there’ to-night, -Billy. The minutes may mean just so many lives saved or lost.” - -“_’Right!_” yelled the fireman, leaning from the gangway to get -Blacklock’s signal; and at the word the engineer’s hand shot to the -lever, the great engine shook itself free, and the rescue race was -begun. - -For the first few miles of the race the track was measurably straight. -Maxwell stood on the raised step at Sprague’s elbow, steadying himself -with a grip on the sill of the opened side window. When he saw that the -ex-fullback was making hard work of it he shouted in the big man’s ear. - -“Loosen up a bit and take the roll with her,” he advised, and Sprague -nodded and tried it. - -“That’s much better,” he called back. “What are we making now?” - -“Forty, or a little more. She’s good for sixty, and so is Cargill, but -the tangents are too short to let us hit the limit.” - -“And the wreck--how far away is it?” - -“An hour and forty-five minutes from Brewster, on a passenger schedule. -We’ll better that by ten or fifteen minutes, though.” - -Evidently young Cargill meant to better it if he could. At Tabor Mine, -ten miles out, the big engine’s exhaust had become a continuous roaring -blast, and the tiny station at the mine siding flashed through the beam -of the electric headlight like some living thing in full flight to -the rear. At Kensett, where the line skirts the reservoir lake of the -Timanyoni High Line Irrigation Company, they passed a long freight on -the siding; the caboose was only a few yards inside of the clear post, -and Sprague winced involuntarily when the engine cab shot past the -freight’s rear end with what seemed only an inch or two to spare. - -Corona was the next night telegraph station, and here the wrecking -special met the two following sections of the freight drawn out upon -the sidings to right and left. Cargill’s grip closed upon the throttle -when the switch and station lights swept into view; but the station -semaphore was wigwagging the “clear” signal, and once more the big man -on the fireman’s box sat tight while the flying special roared through -the narrow main line alley left by the two side-tracked freights. - -Maxwell was holding his watch in his hand when the special cleared the -switches at Corona and the great beam of the headlight began to flick -to right and left in the dodging race among the foot-hills. - -“Well make Timanyoni, at the mouth of the canyon, in ten minutes’ -better time than our fast mail makes it,” he said to Sprague; and the -Government man nodded grimly. - -“It’s all right, Dick,” he shouted back. “Just the same, I’d like to -know how a man ever acquires the nerve to send a train around the hill -corners this way when he hasn’t the slightest notion of what may be -waiting for him five hundred yards in the future.” - -Apparently the stalwart young fellow on the opposite side of the cab -owned the necessary nerve. Easing the huge flyer skilfully around the -sharpest of the turnings, he drove it to the limit on the tangents in -spurts that seemed to promise certain destruction at the next crooking -of the track. But the wheels of the train were still shrilling safely -on the steel when the headlight beam, playing steadily for the moment, -brought the lonely station at the canyon’s mouth into its field. - -Cargill was whistling peremptorily for the signal before the short -train had fully straightened itself on the tangent below the station. -But for some reason the red light on the station semaphore remained -inert. Instantly the sweating fireman jerked his fire-door open, and -the four pairs of eyes in the flyer’s cab were all fixed upon the -motionless red dot over the track when Cargill sounded his second call. - -While the whistle echoes were still yelling in the surrounding hills -the climax came. Out of the station door darted a man with a red -lantern. Cargill pounced upon the throttle, and in the same second -the brakes went into the emergency notch with a jerk that flung the -superintendent and the fireman against the boiler-head and slammed the -guest unceremoniously into the cab corner. - -At the shriek of the brakes, the man with the red lantern turned and -ran in the opposite direction, waving his signal light frantically; and -the wrecking special was still only shrilling and skidding to its stop -when a long passenger-train drawn by two engines slid smoothly out of -the canyon portal and came grinding down the grade with fire spurting -from every suddenly clipped wheel-rim. - -Thanks to the man with the red lantern, there were half a dozen -car-lengths to spare between the two trains when the double stop was -made. But Maxwell was swearing hotly when, with Sprague for a close -second, he dropped from the step of the panting 1016 and ran to meet -the conductor of the passenger-train in the middle of the scant safety -distance. Like the superintendent, the conductor was also boiling over -with profanity, but he swallowed the cursing portion of his wrath -hastily when he recognized the “big boss.” - -“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Maxwell?” he blurted out. “By hen! I was -getting ready to cuss somebody out, red-hot! What’s the trouble?” - -“There doesn’t seem to be any,” snapped Maxwell shortly. “Is this the -Limited?” - -“Sure it is,” replied the conductor. “Hadn’t it ought to be?” - -“And you haven’t been in the ditch?” - -The big red-faced train captain grinned. - -[Illustration: Thanks to the man with the red lantern, there were half -a dozen car-lengths to spare between the two trains.] - -“Not that anybody’s heard of. Is that what’s the matter? Was you coming -to pick us up?” - -Maxwell’s answer was a barked-out string of orders. - -“Let these wreck-wagons in on the siding. Find Blacklock and tell him -to get orders to follow you to Brewster as second section. Pull out as -quick as you can. You’re ten minutes off time, right now!” - -In the drawing-room of the rear sleeper of the limited, Maxwell closed -the door on his guest and himself, passed his cigar-case, lighted a -fresh cigar in his own behalf, and said nothing until after the short -shifting stunt had been worked out and the Apache Limited was once more -racing on its way westward. Then he opened up. - -“You’ve got it now, Calvin; the thing that has been smashing more -nerves for us than we can afford to lose. Of course, you understand -what has happened. That blood-curdling report of an accident was a fake -wire; God only knows where it came from, or who sent it.” - -“And there have been others?” queried Sprague. - -“A dozen of them, first and last. It began about a month ago. Sometimes -it’s merely foolish; at other times it’s like this--a thing to bring -your heart into your mouth.” - -“And you mean to say you haven’t been able to run it down?” - -“Run it down? If there is anything we haven’t done it’s some little -item that has been merely overlooked. We’ve had about all of the -company detectives here, first and last, and the best of them have had -to give it up. There is nothing to work on; absolutely nothing. This -wire to-night purported to come from Angels; as a matter of fact, it -may have come from anywhere east of Brewster and this side of Copah. -When we come to examine the Angels operator, we’ll probably find that -he doesn’t know a thing about it--not a thing in the wide world.” - -“Yet it was a real wire?” - -“Calmaine, my own chief clerk, took it from the sounder and wrote it -down. It seems that Connolly, the night despatcher, had gone out for -a moment and Calmaine was holding down the wires for him. I saw the -message before we left. The call and signature were all right, and the -exact time, nine-thirteen, was given.” - -“Wire-tappers?” suggested the listener, who had grown shrewdly -sympathetic. - -“That is what we’ve all thought. But to tap a wire, you have to cut -in on it somewhere. Of course, it could be done in any one of a -thousand isolated places, but hardly without leaving some trace. -Wickert, our wire-chief, has been over the lines east and west with a -magnifying-glass, you might say.” - -For the measuring of a few other miles of the westward flight of the -train the big man in the opposite seat said nothing. Then he began -again. - -“Have you tried to figure out a motive, Dick?” - -“That is precisely what is driving every one of us stark, staring mad, -Calvin,” was the sober confession. “There isn’t any motive--there can’t -be!” - -“No trouble with the labor unions?” - -“Not a bit in the world. More than that, the men have spent good -money of their own trying to help us find out--as a measure of -self-protection. You can see what they’re afraid of; what we are all -afraid of. Everybody is losing nerve, and if the scare keeps up, we’ll -have real trouble--plenty of it.” - -“And you say the source of the thing can’t be localized?” - -“No. We have a double division, with Brewster as the common -head-quarters. Sometimes the yelp comes from the east, and sometimes -from the west.” - -Again the big-bodied chemistry expert sank back in his seat and fell -into the thoughtful trance. When he came out of it, it was to say: - -“You’ve probably settled it for yourself that it isn’t a plant for a -train robbery--the kind of robbery which would be made easier by a -wreck.” - -Maxwell shook his head. - -“A pile of cross-ties would be much simpler.” - -“Doubtless. We’ll cancel that and come to the next hypothesis. Could it -be the work of some crazy telegraph operator?” - -“We’ve threshed out the crazy guess. It doesn’t prove up. A madman -would slip up now and then--trip himself. I have a file of the fake -messages. They were not sent by a lunatic.” - -“Call it another cancellation,” said the guest. “You are convinced -that some sane person is doing it. Very good. What is the object? You -say you can’t find out; which merely means that you’ve been attacking -it from the wrong angle. Or, rather, you’ve let the professional -detectives give you their angle. What you need is a bit of first-class -amateur work.” - -The superintendent laughed mirthlessly. “If I could only find the -amateur I’d hire him, Calvin,--if it took a year’s salary. I don’t know -what the wire-devil’s object is, but I can catalogue the results. These -periodical scares are demoralizing the entire Short Line. The service -is on the ragged edge of a chaotic blow-up. Half the men in the train -crews are running on their bare nerves, and the operators who have to -handle train-orders are not much better.” - -“Yes,” said the guest quietly. “I’ve been noticing. I saw only one man -in your office who wasn’t scared stiff; and the conductor of this train -we’re riding on had a pretty bad attack of the tremolos when you told -him what the wrecking-train was out for.” - -“Who, Garrighan? No, you’re mistaken there. He’s one of the -cold-blooded ones,” said the superintendent confidently. - -“Excuse me, Dick; I’m never mistaken on that side of the fence. There -were signs, plenty of them. Ninety-eight men in every hundred will duck -and put up one or both arms if you strike at them suddenly. Garrighan -did neither, you’ll say; but if you had been watching him as closely as -I was, you would have seen that he started to do both.” - -Maxwell was regarding his former classmate curiously. - -“Is that how you do it? Is that the way you caught the post-office -thieves, Calvin?” - -The chemistry expert laughed. - -“It’s only a little pointer on methods,” he averred. “When my attention -was first called to such things--it was on a case in the Department -of Justice in which I was required to give expert testimony--I was -very strongly impressed with the crudities of the ordinary detective -methods. I said to myself that what was needed was some one who could -apply good, careful laboratory practice; a habit of observation which -counts nothing too small to be weighed and measured.” - -“Go on,” said Maxwell. - -“The idea came to me that I’d like to try it on, and I did. My theory -is correct. Human beings react under certain given conditions just as -readily, and just as inevitably, as the inorganic substances react in a -laboratory experiment.” - -Maxwell reached for the box of safety matches and passed it to Sprague, -whose cigar had gone out. - -“I wish you could stay and put this railroad of ours into your -test-tube, Calvin. We’re teetering along on the edge of an -earthquake--oh, yes--I know you’ll say it’s only a scare; but the -worst panic that has ever gone into history was only a scare in the -beginning. One of these fine nights some engineer or some operator with -the bare nerves will lose his grip. You know about what that will mean. -We’ve escaped alive, so far; but the first real wreck that hits us -will be just about the same as dropping a lighted match into a barrel -of gunpowder; I thought it had come to-night; I’m glad it hasn’t, but I -know it’s only postponed.” - -The chemistry man nodded. - -“Somebody is reaching for you with a big stick; that is very evident, -Maxwell. And there are brains behind it, too, when you come to think of -it. If you wanted to kill a man without getting hanged for murder, one -way to do it would be to persuade him to commit suicide. Has it ever -occurred to you that somebody may be trying the same experiment on your -railroad?” - -“Good Lord, no!” - -“Stranger things have happened. But that is beside the mark. You say -you are needing help. I’ve half a mind to stop off and give you a bit -of a lift.” - -“By Jove, Calvin!--if you would----” - -“Call it a go,” interrupted the guest. “I’ll take a chance and say that -my business in San Francisco can wait a few days. The fellow I’m after -out there won’t run away; it’s the one thing he doesn’t dare to do.” - -“Say, old man! but that’s bully of you!” exclaimed the host, reaching -across to grip the hand of helping. “You shall have everything in -sight; I’ll put every man on the two divisions under your orders, and -you can have a special train and my private car. If you don’t see what -you want, just ask----” - -The chemistry sharp was holding up his hand and laughing. - -“No, no; hold on, Dick. You’ll have to let me tackle the thing in my -own way, and there won’t be any grand-stand plays in it--in fact, I -don’t mean to appear personally in it at all. Let’s see where we stand. -You have a division detective of some sort, haven’t you?--a fellow who -does the gun-play act when it becomes necessary?” - -“We have; a young fellow named Archer Tarbell, who got his experience -chasing cattle thieves in Montana. He’s a fine fellow, and it’s -breaking his heart because he can’t get the nippers on our wire-devil.” - -“All right. I may want to use him. Now another matter. You have a live -newspaper in Brewster; I bought a copy of it on the train this morning. -If I remember right, it’s called _The Tribune_. Is it friendly to -your railroad?” - -“Ordinarily, yes; though Treadwell, the owner, is independent enough to -print anything that he thinks is news.” - -“Know him pretty well?” - -“Very well, indeed.” - -“Good. When we get in, make it your first care to see the newspaper -people and to persuade them not to make any mention of this little -miss-go of to-night. That’s the first move and it’s an important one. -Can you work it?” - -“Sure. But I don’t see the point.” - -“Never mind about that; I probably sha’n’t do anything that you think -I ought to do. Now about this man Tarbell; is he known as a company -detective?” - -“No, not generally known; he’s on the pay-roll as a spare -operator--relief man, you know.” - -“That’s better. When I meet him I’ll see if I can’t get him interested -in chemistry. That’s how you’re going to account for me, you know. -I’m an old friend of yours, a Government man out of the Department of -Agriculture off on a vacation. Incidentally, I might be wanting to buy -a mine, or something of that sort--anything to start the town gossip on -a harmless chase and to keep it as far as possible from the real reason -for my stop-over.” - -“Everything goes,” said Maxwell. “I’ll start the gossip. What else?” - -“Nothing out of the ordinary. I shall ask you to give me the run of -your railroad office, and I’d like to meet anybody and everybody, when -it falls in naturally--but always as the chemistry sharp; get that well -ground into your cosmos. But here--what’s this? Are we already back in -Brewster?” - -“We are,” said the superintendent, with a glance out of the window. -Then he became the regretful host again. “I hate to have you go back -to the hotel, Calvin. It’s just my crooked luck to have you come along -when the house is shut up and Mrs. Maxwell and the babies are out of -town. They’re due to come home in a day or two, and I’m selfish enough -to hope that we can keep you over. Let’s drop off here at the crossing. -It’s nearer to the hotel, and it’ll give me a chance to reach _The -Tribune_ office before Treadwell’s young men come in with their -scare stuff.” - -It was a half-hour after the arrival of the unwrecked Limited, and -the story of the curious false alarm was just getting itself passed -from lip to ear among the loungers in the Hotel Topaz lobby, when the -Government man came down from his room to file a rather lengthy New -York message with the hotel telegraph operator. - -“Cipher?--holy smoke!” exclaimed the young man at the lobby wire desk; -but a liberal tip made it look easier, and he added: “All right, I’m -good for it, I guess, and I’ll get it through as quick as I can. -Answer to your room?” - -“If you please,” said the guest; and, as it was by this time well on -toward midnight, he went to bed. - -By noon of the day following the false alarm run of the wrecking-train -to Timanyoni Canyon, all Brewster, or at least the railroad part of -it, knew that Superintendent Maxwell was entertaining an old college -classmate at the Hotel Topaz. For the town portion of the gossip there -was some little disagreement as to Mr. Calvin Sprague’s state and -standing. Some had it that the big, handsome athlete was a foot-ball -coach taking his vacation between seasons. Others said that he was -a capitalist in disguise, looking for a ground-floor investment in -Timanyoni mines. - -These were Mr. Sprague’s placings for the man in the street. But to the -rank and file in the railroad head-quarters building Sprague figured -in his proper character as a Government drug-mixer on a holiday; a -royal good fellow who fraternized instantly with everybody, whose naïve -ignorance about railroading was a joke, and whose vast unknowledge -was nicely balanced by a keen and comradely curiosity to learn all -that anybody could tell him about the complex workings of a railroad -head-quarters in action. - -Naturally, and possibly because Davis, the chief despatcher, was -willing to be hospitable, he spent an hour of the forenoon in the -wire office, ingenuously absorbing detail and evincing an interest -in the day’s work that made Davis, ordinarily a rather reticent man, -transform himself into a lecturer on the theory and practice of railway -telegraphy. - -It was in Davis’s office that he met Tarbell; and the keen-eyed, -sober-faced young fellow who was carried on the division pay-rolls -as a relief operator became his guide on a walking tour of the shops -and the yards. Tarbell saw in Mr. Maxwell’s guest nothing more -than an exceedingly affable gentleman with an immense capacity for -interesting himself in the workaday details of a railroad outfit; but -at one o’clock, when Maxwell joined Sprague at a quiet corner table -for two in the hotel café, there were several surprises awaiting the -superintendent. - -“Getting it shaken down a little so that you’ll know where to begin?” -was Maxwell’s opening question; and the ex-fullback laughed. - -“You must take me for a sleuth of the common or garden variety,” he -retorted. “Did you suppose I had thrown away an entire forenoon scoring -for a start? Not so, Richard; not even remotely so. I’ve been finding -out a lot of things. I am even able to suggest an improvement or two in -your telegraph installation.” - -“For example?” said Maxwell. - -“Both of your yard offices are cut in on the working wire. If this were -my railroad I’d put them on a pony circuit and cut them out of the main -line.” - -“Why would you?” - -“We’ll have to go back a little for the specific answer in the present -case; back to last night, and to the young man who chased out with a -red lantern to keep us from running into the passenger train which -wasn’t wrecked. Why do you suppose he did that?” - -“That’s easy; he heard the passenger coming down the canyon.” - -“That was the inference, of course. But when you have taken the -thirty-third degree in the exact science of observation, Dick, you’ll -learn to distrust inferences and to accept only conclusions. He didn’t -hear the passenger; he didn’t know it was coming. If you had been -observing him as closely as I was, you would have seen him write this -down in his actions as plain as print. He had a much better reason for -stopping us--and the passenger. It was a wire order from somebody. If -you don’t believe it, have Davis call him up and ask him, when you go -back to your office.” - -Notwithstanding the criticism just passed upon him by his table-mate, -Maxwell again caught at an inference. - -“You’ve found the wire-devil, Calvin? You’ve got to the bottom of the -thing in a single forenoon?” - -“No; not quite to the bottom. But some few things I have learned, -beyond any question of doubt. In the first place, this trouble of yours -is pretty serious; far more serious than you suspect. In fact, it is -designed to remove your railroad from the map, not by murder outright, -but by what you might call incited suicide. The condition which you -described last night is painfully apparent, even to an outsider like -myself. Half of your men are potential powder-mines, ready to blow up -if the spark is applied.” - -“Go on,” said Maxwell eagerly. “What else did you find out?” - -“I learned that a stop-all-trains order was sent to your young man -at the canyon station last night, and that, in all probability, it -was sent from Brewster. The ultimate question fines itself down to -this: did your night despatcher, Connolly, send that order through -his own instrument in his own office? or did he, or some other, send -it from the upper yard office?--which, as I have remarked, is rather -injudiciously cut in on the regular working wire. I’ll venture to make -the answer positive; the order was sent from the yard office.” - -“Connolly!” said the superintendent under his breath. “I can’t believe -it, Calvin. Who ever heard of a fat villain?” - -“Go a little easy on the inferences,” laughed the chemistry expert. “I -didn’t say it was Connolly, though it looks rather bad for him at the -present stage of the game. He is in debt, and he wants to get married.” - -“But, good Lord! what has that got to do with----” - -“Hold on,” interposed the expert calmly. “We haven’t come to that part -of it yet. As I say, this stop-order was sent from the yard office. How -do I know? Because the sender left his trail behind him in the shape -of a wire recently cut and recoupled--the cutout being made to keep -the message from repeating itself in the head-quarters office where it -might be heard by anybody who happened to be standing around.” - -“But Connolly couldn’t leave his wire to go to the yard office.” - -“Unfortunately for him, he did leave it. About half an hour after the -wrecking-train left he called Davis, who was sleeping in one of the -bunk-rooms in your wickiup attic. His excuse was that he was so rattled -that he couldn’t hold himself down at the train-desk. Davis relieved -him for an hour or so, and then he came back.” - -“Still I can’t believe it of Connolly,” Maxwell persisted. “If he sent -that message to Timanyoni last night, that makes him responsible for -all the others--the devil-messages, as the men are calling them. Some -of these have come in the night, while he was on duty. How could he -have worked it in that case?” - -Again the chemistry expert laughed. “A suspicious person might draw a -bunch of inferences,” he said, “throwing out a dark hint or so about -a concealed cut-in on the wires after they enter the attic of the -railroad building and a hidden set of instruments. Also, the same -person would probably point to the fact that Connolly wasn’t at his -desk when the fake wreck notice came last night. It was your chief -clerk, Calmaine, who took it from the wire, and he tells me he was -subbing for Connolly for a few minutes while Connolly went upstairs for -his smoking-tobacco.” - -“My Lord!” said Maxwell; “you’ve put it upon Connolly, fair and -square, Calvin; it’s all over but the hanging!” - -“There you go again,” joked the Government man, with his good-natured -grin. “I haven’t said it is Connolly. But I will say this: with -another half-day at it, I’ll probably be able to turn the case over to -Tarbell--and the newspapers.” - -“The newspapers?” - -“Yes. That will be a part of the cure for the crazy sickness among your -men. Sit tight and say nothing, and by this evening I’ll be ready to -put you next.” - -It was late in the afternoon, and the man from Washington had spent -much of the intervening time loafing in the different offices sheltered -by the head-quarters roof, when young Tarbell got a telephone summons -from the hotel. In the writing-room, which was otherwise deserted, he -found the superintendent’s guest waiting for him. Sprague waved him to -a chair and began at once. - -“What did you find out, Mr. Tarbell?” - -“Nothing to hurt. The fellow you was askin’ about went out on the -wreck-train and came back on it.” - -“You’re sure of that?” - -“Sure of the first part, and not so sure of the last. I’ve found half a -dozen o’ the men who saw him get on the train here, and saw him after -he was on. They’re a little hazy about the back trip, but he must’ve -come back that way, because he didn’t come on the Limited.” - -“And his wife?” - -Tarbell’s lip curled in honest cleanliness. - -“He ain’t got any wife. It was his girl he was expectin’, and she -didn’t come.” - -“And afterward?” suggested the questioner. - -“After he got back he showed up in the office and took his job again, -lettin’ Catherton go home.” - -The Government man’s eyes narrowed and after a moment he began again. - -“How near can you come to keeping your own counsel, Mr. Tarbell?” he -demanded abruptly. - -“I reckon I can talk a few without sayin’ much,” said the ex-cowboy. -And then, after a pause: “You mean that you don’t want to be mixed up -in this thing by name, Mr. Sprague?” - -“You’ve hit it exactly. You’ve got your start and I want you to work -it out yourself. You have the line. Somebody--somebody who is not a -thousand miles from your head-quarters building over yonder--is working -this scare, working it for a purpose which he wishes to accomplish -without making himself actually and legally responsible. Had you got -that far in your own reasoning, Mr. Tarbell?” - -“No, indeedy,” was the prompt reply. “I reckon I’m only a plug when it -comes down to the sure-enough, fine-haired part of it.” - -“You’ll learn, after a bit,” said the chemistry expert shortly. “But -let that go. You have the facts now, and they are driven pretty well -into a corner. Can you go and get your man?” - -Tarbell got up and shoved his hands into his pockets. - -“I reckon I can,” he admitted slowly, and started to move away. But at -the door the big man at the writing-desk recalled him. - -“Don’t go on supposition, Tarbell. Ask yourself, when you get outside, -if you’ve got the evidence that the court will demand. Ask yourself, -also, if you know of your own knowledge, or if you’ve only allowed -yourself to be hypnotized into your belief. If you can get satisfactory -answers to these questions, go to it and bring back the money, as they -say up in Seattle.” - -For what remained of the afternoon after Tarbell went away, Sprague sat -in the writing-room and wrote letters, sealing and addressing the last -one just as Maxwell came over to go to dinner with him. At table there -were plenty of uncut back-numbers in the way of college reminiscences -to be threshed over, and Sprague carefully kept the talk in this -innocuous field until after they had left the dining-room to go for a -smoke on the loggia porch. When the cigars were alight, Maxwell would -no longer be choked off. - -“Anything new in the wire-devil business, Calvin?” he asked. - -“I’ve turned the case over to Tarbell, as I promised. I’m through with -my part of it.” - -“What’s that!” ejaculated the superintendent. “You’ve got your man?” - -“Tarbell will get him--most probably before we go to bed to-night. He’s -a fine young fellow, that reformed cowboy of yours, Dick. I like him.” - -Maxwell was still gasping. “You’re a wonder, Calvin--a latter-day -wizard! Good Heavens! Do you realize that we’ve been working on this -thing for a month? And you’ve cleaned it up in a day!” - -The chemistry expert was smiling good-naturedly. - -“Perhaps I came at a fortuitous moment, and had exceptional -advantages,” he demurred. - -“But are you sure?” demanded Maxwell soberly. - -“So sure that if your ‘devil’ had caused any loss of life in his -monkeyings, I could go into court and hang him.” - -“Thank God!” said the superintendent; and then again, as if an enormous -weight had been lifted from his shoulders, “Thank God!” - -Sprague looked up quickly. - -“You’ve been taking it pretty hard, haven’t you, Dick? Any special -reason?” - -“Yes. You know Ford, our president: he has made the Pacific -Southwestern System--made it out of whole cloth; and, incidentally, he -has made a good few of us fellows who have fought with him shoulder -to shoulder from the first. When I was last in New York, a couple of -months ago, he rode from the club to the station in the taxi with me. -He was in trouble of some sort--he didn’t tell me what it was; but the -last thing he said as I was boarding the train gave me some notion of -it. ‘Run that jerk-water Short Line of yours, Dick, as if you were -carrying all your eggs to market and had them all in one basket,’ he -said, and then he added: ‘No wrecks, Dick, if you have to sit up nights -to head them off.’” - -Sprague was smoking peacefully. It was perhaps too much to expect that -a man whose problems were chiefly in the field of laboratory science -should be very deeply interested in one in which the elements were -merely human. When he spoke again it was to recur to his favorable -impression of Tarbell. “I like that young fellow,” he said in -conclusion. “He’ll pull you out of the hole--with a little timely -help from the newspapers. When he gets the ball into his hands and -starts down the field with it, you’d best be prepared for some pretty -sensational developments. They’re due.” - -For a little while Maxwell said nothing, and the fine lines between -his eyes deepened slowly into a frown of anxiety. Finally he said: -“I’ve got ’em, too, Calvin--the ‘jimmies,’ I mean. My wife and the two -kiddies are coming home on the ‘Apache’ to-night, and don’t you know, -I had half a mind to wire her to stop over in Copah until I could go -after her? That’s a pretty pass for things to come to, isn’t it?--when -a man’s afraid to have the members of his family ride over his own -particular piece of railroad?” - -Sprague flipped the ash from his cigar. - -“That’s one of the bridges you don’t have to cross until you come to -it.” - -Maxwell got out of his chair and refused Sprague’s offer of a fresh -cigar. - -“No,” he said; “this has been one of the days when I’ve smoked too -much. I’m going over to the office to keep my finger on the pulse of -things. When it gets too dull for you over here, come across and break -in. If I’m not in my own office, you’ll find me in room eleven--the -despatcher’s--keeping tab on the movements of the Apache Limited.” - -Fully two hours beyond the time when the superintendent had crossed -the railroad plaza to climb the stair of the head-quarters building, -Tarbell, strolling along the plaza-fronting street, swung himself over -the railing of the loggia porch and took the chair next to the man from -Washington, who was still sitting as Maxwell had left him and still -smoking. - -“I’ve been waiting for you,” said the patient smoker, without taking -his eyes from the row of lighted windows in the railroad building -opposite. - -“I allowed you would be,” rejoined Tarbell in his gentle -Tennessee-mountain drawl. And then, quite as calmly: “I reckon I’ve -found the answers to all them questions you ’lotted to me. I reckon -I’ve got him.” - -“I’ve been betting on you, Tarbell,” was the word of approval. Then: -“It comes pretty near home, doesn’t it?” - -“It sure does. It’s goin’ to hurt Mr. Maxwell good and plenty. He -counts all the men in the home office as his fam’ly, and there’s never -been one o’ them to go back on him till now.” - -“What is your evidence?” queried Sprague. - -“I reckon you’d call it circumstantial--and so will the judge. But -it hobbles him all right. There’s a cut-in on the despatcher’s wires -over yonder, ’way up under the roof where nobody’d find it, with four -little fine lead wires goin’ down in the wall. I couldn’t find where -they come out at, but I reckon that don’t make any difference: they’re -_there_.” - -“Anything else?” - -“Yes. I’ve got a letter that I hooked out of his coat pocket not ten -minutes ago; a letter from some gang boss o’ his’n in New York, givin’ -him goss for not showin’ up results, and allowin’ to pull some sort of -a gun on him if the papers don’t begin to print scare heads about a -certain railroad management, _pronto_.” - -The chemistry expert smiled shrewdly. - -“You are not the young man I took you for, Tarbell, if you are not -wringing your brain like a wet towel to make it tell you why anybody in -New York should wish to see Nevada Short Line wreck bulletins in the -newspapers.” - -“That ain’t no joke, neither,” Tarbell admitted gravely, adding, “I -been hopin’ maybe it would come out in the round-up.” - -“Yes,” said Sprague, half-absently. “It will come out in the round-up.” -And then, after a thoughtful pause, “Perhaps we’d better go over and -relieve Mr. Maxwell’s mind. But first it wouldn’t be a bad idea to -telephone the editor of _The Tribune_ and ask him to send his -railroad reporter down to Mr. Maxwell’s office. If you say that Mr. -Maxwell will probably have a bit of first-page stuff for him, it won’t -be necessary to go into details.” - -Tarbell went into the hotel lobby to telephone, and afterward they -crossed the plaza to the working head-quarters of the double division. -Finding the superintendent’s office open and lighted but unoccupied, -they went on to the despatcher’s room. In the public space outside of -the counter railing three or four trainmen were grouped in front of the -bulletin-board looking for their assignments on the night trains and -thumbing the file of posted “General Orders.” - -Behind the railing Connolly was sitting at his glass-topped wire-table -with the train-sheet under his hand and the superintendent at his -elbow. Over in the corner under his green-shaded electric bulb, -Bolton, the sallow-faced car-record man, was fingering the keys of his -type-writer. - -Tarbell opened the gate in the railing to admit Sprague and himself. -Maxwell looked up and nodded a welcome to his guest. - -“Got tired of sitting it out alone, did you?” he said; and then, “I’ll -be with you in a minute and we’ll go over to my office. I’m waiting to -get Timanyoni’s report of the Limited.” - -“Mrs. Maxwell is on the train?” - -Maxwell nodded, and a moment later Connolly’s sounder clicked out -Timanyoni’s report of the passing train. The fat despatcher was -nervous. It showed in his rattling of the key as he O K’d the canyon -station’s report, and again in a small disaster when, in reaching for -his pen to make the train-sheet entry, he overset his ink-well. - -“Well, I’m damned!” he grunted, snatching at the train-sheet and -pushing the ink flood back with his free hand. Maxwell came to the -rescue, and so did Tarbell; and a liberal application of blotters -stopped the flood. But at the close of the incident Connolly’s hands -were well blackened. - -It was at this conjuncture that Davis, the chief despatcher, came in on -the way up to his room in the attic half-story above. Connolly appealed -to him at once. - -“If you’ll sit in here, just for a minute, Davis, while I go wash -my hands?” he said, adding: “I’d ought to be kicked all the way -downstairs!” - -When Davis had taken the chair and Connolly had gone out, Tarbell -whispered to the superintendent. Maxwell nodded, and made a sign to -Sprague. When he had closed the door of the despatcher’s room behind -himself and his guest, he explained: - -“Tarbell says he is ready, and we may as well have it over with. Do you -want to be present?” - -“As a spectator, yes,” said the expert. - -“All right; we’ll go to my office and wait for Archer.” - -The waiting interval proved to be short. Maxwell had just thrown his -roll-top desk open, and the Government man had planted his big bulk -solidly in the half-shadowed window-seat, when the door opened and -Connolly came in, his full-moon face a frightened blank and his hands -still ink-blackened. Tarbell was only a step behind the despatcher, and -the reporter from _The Tribune_ office was at Tarbell’s heels. -When the three were inside, Tarbell shut the door and put his back -against it. - -“Here’s your man, Mr. Maxwell,” he said briefly; and Sprague, who had -started to his feet at the door opening, sat down again in the shadow -and said nothing. - -Maxwell pointed brusquely to a chair at the desk end. “Sit down, Dan,” -he snapped. And then: “I suppose you know what you’re here for?” - -Connolly fell into the chair as if the sharp command had been a blow. - -“Know what I’m here for?” he stammered. - -“Yes. Nothing will be gained by dodging. You may as well make a clean -breast of it. You’ve been faking these scare wreck reports--don’t lie -about it; we’ve got the evidence. I want to know who is behind you. Who -bribed you to do this thing?” - -“Before God, Mr. Maxwell!” the culprit began, with the sweat rolling -down his face; but Maxwell stopped him with a quick gesture. - -“I’ve told you it was no use to try to lie out of it. I have here on -my desk a letter which was taken from your coat pocket to-night, since -you came on duty; a letter from which you were careful enough to tear -the signature, but on which you were not careful enough to destroy the -date line. In that letter the writer threatens to give you away to the -New York police if you don’t get busy and give the newspapers a string -of Nevada Short Line wrecks to write about. That is enough to send you -over the road, but there’s more. The working wires east and west have -been cut under the roof of this building, and leads taken off. The -leads disappear in the wall back of your bunk-room. I don’t ask you -what you have to say for yourself; I want you to tell us, right here -and now, who planned the thing, and what it was intended to accomplish.” - -Connolly had been slowly collapsing in his chair under the merciless -fire of accusation, and a pasty pallor was driving the pink out of his -round face. - -“My God!” he gasped thickly; and then he repeated, “My God!” A silence -crammed with threatenings settled down upon the small office-room. -Suddenly it was broken by the sound of hurried footfalls in the -corridor, and Tarbell was hurled half-way across the room when the door -was flung open from without. - -It was young Cargill, the engineer, who burst into the private office, -and his lips were white. - -“The Limited!” he broke out. “She’s overrun her orders at Corona and -she’s due to meet Second Eighteen on the single track!” - -It was the Government man who led the rush to the despatcher’s room, a -rush in which even the fat culprit joined. In the wire office Davis had -the key; his jaw was set and the perspiration was standing thickly on -his forehead, but he had not lost his nerve. Calmaine, the chief clerk, -was hanging over his shoulder, and outside of the railing the group of -trainmen had grown to a breathless crowd, pressing to hear the latest -word. - -When Maxwell’s party pushed through the gate, Sprague was still in the -lead, and his quick glance took in every detail of the scene. Like a -flash he turned upon Tarbell, who was fumbling a pair of handcuffs in -his pocket, and pinioned him in a grip that was like the nip of a vice. - -“Not yet!” he whispered in Tarbell’s ear; and then Davis snapped his -switch and spoke. - -“It’s no use,” he said, and his harsh tone was only a thin mask for the -break in his voice. “It’s the real thing this time. First Eighteen was -ready to pull out of Corona when the Limited went by. Corringer left -his wire and chased the freight, hoping to get its engine to cut loose -and run after the passenger. He couldn’t catch it.” - -A low murmur ran through the crowd packed against the counter railing -and somebody whispered, “It’s got the boss; his wife and babies are on -that train. Look at him!” - -Maxwell had gripped the back of a chair and he was staring hot-eyed at -the despatcher. - -“Do something, Davis,” he pleaded. “Don’t sit there and let those -trains come together! For Christ’s sake, think of something!” - -The chief despatcher ducked his head as if he were dodging a blow and -swallowed hard. - -“There isn’t anything to do, Mr. Maxwell--you know there isn’t -anything,” he began in low tones. “If there was----” - -It was Connolly who made the break. Twisting away from Tarbell’s grip -on his arm he flung himself upon Davis. - -“Get out o’ that chair and let me have the key,” he wheezed; and when -Davis did not move quickly enough he pounced upon the key standing. -Davis got up and quietly slid the chair under the night man who sank -heavily into it without missing a letter in the call he was insistently -clicking out, over and over again in endless repetition. - -“What is it?” whispered the newspaper man, who was standing aside with -Tarbell and Sprague; and Tarbell answered: - -“It’s the Corcoran coal mine--about half-way between Corona and the -first station this side, and a half-mile up the gulch. They’ve got a -private wire, but they ain’t got any night operator.” - -Davis overheard the whisper and shook his head. - -“Dan’s got his wits with him,” he said, in open admiration. “There’s a -young time-keeper that sleeps in the coal company’s office shack, and -he’s learning to plug in on the wire a little. If Dan can only wake -him----” And then, in sudden sharp self-accusation: “God forgive me! -why didn’t I think of it and save all the time that’s been wasted?” -Then, as Connolly closed the circuit and a halting reply clicked -through the receiving instrument: “He’s got him! Thank the Lord, he’s -got him! If he can only make him understand what’s wanted, there’s a -chance--just one chance in a thousand!” - -With the very seconds now freighted with disaster, and with -only the crudest of amateur telegraphers at the other end of -the wire, nine men out of ten would have blown up and lost the -thousandth part of a chance remaining. But Connolly was the tenth -man. With his left hand shaking until it was beating a tattoo -on the glass table top he hitched his chair closer and began to -spell out, letter by letter, the brief call for help upon which -so much depended. Tarbell translated for Sprague, word by word. -“Hurry--down--to--main-line--and--throw--your--switch--to--red. -Then--run--west--and--flag--passenger.” - -The key-switch clicked on the final word, and for five long, dragging -seconds the silence was a keen agony. Then the sounder began -hesitantly: dot--pause--dot; dash--dot--dash, it spelled; and Tarbell -translated under his breath, “He says ‘O K’. Now, if he can only chase -his feet fast enough----” - -How Maxwell managed to live and not die through the interminable -twenty minutes that followed; how Davis and Tarbell and Connolly -hung breathless over the wire-table, while the throng outside of the -railing, augmented now to a jammed crowd of sympathetic watchers, -rustled and moved and whispered in awed undertones--are themes upon -which the rank and file of the Nevada Short Line still enlarge in the -roundhouse tool-rooms and in the switch shanties when the crews are -waiting for a delayed train. - -The dreadful interval seemed as if it would never be outworn, but the -end came at last when the hesitant clicking of the sounder was resumed. - -“Call it out, Dan,” shouted somebody among the waiting trainmen, and -Connolly pronounced the words slowly as the amateur at the end of the -private wire ticked them off. - -“Both--trains--safe--freight--backing--to--blind--siding--at-- -Quentin--switch--passenger--following--under--flag.” - -A shout went up that drowned the feeble patter of the telegraph -instruments and made the windows rattle. “Bully for the kid at the coal -mine!” “Bully for Danny Connolly!” “Come out here, Danny, till we get -a chanst at you!” - -Maxwell fought his way stubbornly through the crowd, with the newspaper -man, Sprague, Tarbell, and Connolly following in his wake. When the -five were once more behind the closed door of the private office -across the hall, the superintendent turned morosely upon the night -despatcher, and he was so full of the thing he was about to do that he -did not notice that his guest had taken Tarbell aside for a whispered -conference. - -“You’ve drawn the teeth of the law, this time, Connolly,” he said -sharply. “After what you’ve just done I’m not going to send you to -jail. But the least you can do is to tell me who hired you and sent you -out here to make trouble for us. If you’ll do that----” - -It was Sprague’s hand on his shoulder that stopped him, and then he -noticed that Tarbell had disappeared. “Just a minute--until Tarbell -gets back,” said the guest, in low tones; and while he was saying -it, the door opened suddenly and the ex-cowboy returned, thrusting a -sallow-faced young fellow, shirt-sleeved and livid with fear, into the -office ahead of him. Then the Government man went on in the same low -tone, “You can say to this young man all the things you were going to -say to Mr. Connolly. There was a little miscue on Tarbell’s part, and -I was just going to tell you about it when the train trouble butted -in.” Then to the fat despatcher, “Mr. Connolly, sit down. You’ve jolly -well earned the right to look on and listen.” - -Connolly sat down heavily, and so did the superintendent. Thereupon the -man from Washington slipped easily into the breach, turning briskly -upon the yellow-faced car-record operator. - -“Step up here, Bolton, and make a clean sweep of it to Mr. Maxwell. -Tell him how a certain firm of New York brokers--you needn’t give the -names now--sent you, a convicted bucket-shop wire-tapper, out here -to disarrange things on this railroad for stock-jobbing purposes. -Then tell him how you tapped the despatcher’s wires and put a set of -concealed keys under your car-record table in the other room. Tell him -how, after you’d faked that wreck message last night, you ran a bluff -for sympathy, and how, when it had worked, your nerve flickered and you -dropped from the wrecking-train in the yard and sent a stop-order from -the yard office. Come to the front and loosen up!” - -Bolton was shuffling forward and was beginning a tremulous confession -when Maxwell stopped him harshly. - -“You can keep all that to tell in court!” he snapped. And then to -Tarbell: “Take him away, Archer. And you go back to your job, Dan, and -let Davis go to bed. What I’ve got to say to you will keep.” Then to -the young man from the _Tribune_, who had his note-book out and -was scribbling down his story at breakneck speed: “Write out what you -please, Scanlan, but tell Mr. Kendall that I’ll be up to the office -presently, and that I’d like to see the story before it goes to the -linotypes.” - -When the room was cleared, the snappy little superintendent spun his -chair around to face his guest. - -“Calvin,” he said solemnly, “you’ll never know how near you came to -making me break my heart to-night. If I’d had to send Dan Connolly to -jail after what he did in the other room a little while ago----” - -The chemistry expert was grinning joyously. - -“It was a curious little slip,” he commented. “I thought Tarbell -was on; never suspected for a moment that he wasn’t until he butted -Connolly in here and shot him at you.” - -“But you knew Connolly wasn’t the man? How on top of earth did you run -it down, in a single day? I can’t surround it, even yet.” - -“It wasn’t much of a nut to crack,” laughed the expert easily. “I hope -you’ll have a harder one for me the next time I happen along. I got my -pointer last night--before I knew anything at all about the nature of -your trouble. You see, Bolton was the only man in the outfit who wasn’t -sincerely jarred and horrified by that fake message. I saw it the -minute I’d had a look into his eyes. From that on it was easy enough.” - -“I don’t see it,” objected Maxwell. - -“Don’t you? I merely argued backward from the results your wire-devil -was trying to obtain and sent a cipher message to a friend of mine -in New York. He put me next to a nice little plot in the Street to -hamper Ford and break down your company credit. Then I loafed around -your shack here until I found Bolton’s wire machinery. Bolton didn’t -catch on, but he was suspicious enough of a stranger like me to take a -little measure of precaution by slipping that incriminating letter into -Connolly’s coat pocket. I supposed Tarbell knew that, or I’d have told -him.” - -Maxwell had been listening in appreciative admiration, but gratitude -came quickly to the fore when Sprague paused. - -“Calvin, there’s no telling how many lives you’ve saved by this little -stop-over of yours here in Timanyoni Park!” he broke out. “You’ve -done it. When that story, properly trimmed down, comes out in the -_Tribune_ to-morrow morning, the bare-nerves strain will go off -like that”--snapping his fingers. “I wish I could show you.... By -George! there’s the Limited pulling in. I’ve got to go down and meet -the wife and kiddies!” - -The big-bodied man who called himself a chemistry sharp and confessed -to the riding of many hobbies rose up with a laugh. - -“You want to show me? All right: take me downstairs with you and show -me Mrs. Maxwell and the babies. As for the other, you know as well -as I do that it’s all in the day’s work. Pitch out or we’ll miss the -folks--and that would be worse than getting another message from the -wire-devil.” - - - - -II - -High Finance in Cromarty Gulch - - -IT was a warm night for altitude five thousand feet, and the last few -lingerers in the dining-car on the eastbound “Flying Plainsman” had -their windows open. Midway of the car a quartette of light-hearted -young people were exchanging guesses as to the proper classification of -a big man with laughing eyes and a fighting jaw who was dining alone at -one of the end tables. - -“He looks like money--nice, large, ready money--to me,” commented the -prettiest of the three young women; but her seat-mate, a handsome -young fellow with the badge of his college athletic association worn -conspicuously in his button-hole, thought differently. “You’ve fumbled -the ball this time, Kitty,” he dissented. “If he isn’t the champion of -all the amateur heavy-weights, you can put him down as a ’varsity coach -out scouting for talent. Jehu! what a ‘back’ he’d make under the new -rules!” - -“Vaudeville is my guess,” chimed in the next-to-the-prettiest girl -mockingly; “the strong man who puts up the dumb-bells, and all that, -you know. If you could break into his luggage, I’d wager a box of -chocolates that you’d find a perfectly beautiful suit of pink tights -with spangled trunks and resined slippers.” - -A little later the big man in the far corner took his change from the -waiter and left the car. As he passed the joyous party at the double -table there was a good-natured twinkle in his gray eyes and he dropped -a neatly engraved card at the collegian’s plate. - -“Heavens and earth!--he heard us!” gasped the prettiest girl. And then, -feminine curiosity overcoming shame, “What does it say, Tommy?” - -The young man held the card so that all could see, and admitted himself -a loser in the classification game. - - CALVIN W. SPRAGUE, - Washington, D. C. - _Chemist, Dept. of Agriculture_ - -was what they read; and the fourth member of the group, a young -woman with fine eyes and an adorable chin, who was neither pretty -nor prettier, but something far more transcendent, took the card and -studied it thoughtfully. - -“You’ve all missed the most astonishing thing--how he contrived to -overhear us at this distance,” she commented musingly. And then, -addressing the vanished card-owner through his bit of pasteboard: “So -you’re a chemist, are you, Mr. Sprague? You don’t look it, not the -least little bit, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I say that I doubt -it; doubt it very much indeed.” - -While the young people were debating among themselves as to whether -or no there might not be an apology due, the big man who had dined -alone passed quite through the string of vestibuled Pullmans and went -to light his cigar on the rear platform of the combination buffet and -observation car. - -Shortly after he had seated himself in one of the platform camp-chairs, -the train, which had been rocketing down a wide valley with an isolated -ridge on one hand and a huge mountain range on the other, came to a -stand at one of the few-and-far-between stations. The pause, one would -say, should have been only momentary; but after it had lasted for a -full minute or more the solitary smoker on the rear platform left his -chair and went to lean over the platform railing for a forward glance. - -Looking down the length of the long train, he saw the lights of the -small station, with other lights beyond it which seemed to mark a -railroad crossing or junction. On the station platform there were -a number of lanterns held high to light a group of men who were -struggling to lift a long, ominous-looking box into the express-car. - -A little later the wheels of the train began to trundle again, and as -his car-end passed the station the smoker on the observation platform -had a fleeting glimpse of the funeral party, and of the heavy four-mule -mountain-wagon which had apparently served as its single equipage. -Also, he remarked what a less observant person might have missed: that -the lantern-bearers were roughly clothed, and that they were armed. - -A hundred yards beyond the station the train stopped again; and when it -presently began to back slowly the platform watcher understood that it -was preparing to take on a lighted coach standing on a siding belonging -to the junction railroad. When the coupling was made and the “Flying -Plainsman,” with the picked-up car in tow, was once more gathering -headway in its eastward flight up the valley of a torrenting mountain -river, the big man read the number “04” over the door of the newly -added coach. After he had made out the number he coolly put a leg over -the barrier railing, brushed the guarding porter aside, and pushed his -way through the narrow side corridor of the trailer. - -In the rear half of the car the corridor opened into a comfortable -working-room fitted with easy-chairs, lounges, and a desk; -otherwise, the office in transit of the Nevada Short Line’s general -superintendent, Mr. Richard Maxwell. Maxwell was at his desk when the -big-bodied intruder shouldered himself into the open compartment, but -he sprang up joyfully when he recognized his unannounced visitor. - -“Why, Calvin, old man! Where in thunder did you drop from?” he -demanded, wringing the hand of greeting in a vain endeavor to match the -big man’s crushing grip. “Sit down and tell it out. I thought you’d -gone back east over the Transcontinental a full month ago.” - -The man whose card named him as a Government chemist picked out the -easiest of the lounging-chairs and planted himself comfortably in it. - -“Jarred you, did I? That’s nothing; I’ve jarred worse men than you are -in my time. Your thinking machinery is all right; I was due to go back -a month ago, but I got interested in a little laboratory experiment on -the coast and couldn’t tear myself away. How are Mrs. Maxwell and the -kiddies?” - -“Fine! And I’m hurrying to get home to them. I’ve been out for a week -and had begun to think I was never going to get back to the Brewster -office again. I’ve been having the busiest little ghost dance you ever -heard of during the past few days.” - -The big man settled himself still more comfortably in his chair and -relighted the cigar, which, being of the dining-car brand, had sulked -for a time and then gone dejectedly out. - -“Will the busy story bear telling?” he asked. - -“Yes--to you,” was the half-guarded reply. “You’ll be interested when I -tell you that I’m inclined to believe that it’s ‘a little more of the -same’--a continuation of our round-up with the ‘wire-devil’ that you -straightened out for us a few weeks ago.” - -The listener nodded. “Begin back a bit,” he suggested; and Maxwell did -it. - -“After you went west, we put our wire-devil through the courts, and -President Ford served notice on the New York high-finance pirates; told -them he had their numbers, and that they’d better let up on us. That -was the end of it for the time. But a week ago Thursday I got a hot -wire from Ford, telling me to secure voting proxies on every possible -share of Short Line stock held locally, firing the proxies to him in -New York by special messenger, who should reach him, he said, not later -than the night of the fifteenth.” - -“Um,” commented the smoker thoughtfully. “Is there much of the stock -held out here in your Timanyoni wilderness?” - -“A good bit of it, first and last. When the Pacific Southwestern, -with Ford at its head, took over the Red Butte Western, the R. B. W. -was strictly a local line, and the reorganization plan was based upon -an exchange of stock--the new for the old. Then, when we built the -extension and issued more stock, quite a block of it was taken up by -local capitalists, bankers, mineowners, and ranchmen; not a majority, -of course, but a good, healthy balance of power.” - -Again the giant in the lounging-chair nodded. “I see,” he cut in. -“There is doubtless a stockholders’ meeting looming up in the near -future--say on the day after the all-important fifteenth--and the -Wall Street people are going after Ford’s scalp again, this time in a -strictly legal way. He will probably need your Western proxies, and -need them bad.” - -“I’ve got them right here,” said Maxwell, tapping a thick bunch of -papers on his desk. “And believe me, I’ve had a sweet time rounding -them up. Every moneyed man in this country is a friend of Ford’s, and -yet I’ve had to wrestle with every individual one of them for these -proxies as if I’d been asking them to shed their good red blood.” - -“Of course,” was the quiet comment. “The fellows on the other side -would stack the cards on you--or try to. What’s in the wind this time? -Just a stock-breaking raid for speculation, or is it something bigger -than that?” - -The young superintendent shook his head doubtfully. - -“I don’t know, certainly; I haven’t had a chance to talk with -Ford since early in the summer. But I have my own guess. If the -Transcontinental could control this five-hundred-mile stretch of -ours from Copah to Lorchi, it would have the short line to southern -California.” - -“Therefore and wherefore, if Mr. Ford doesn’t happen to have the votes -in the coming stockholders’ meeting, you’ll be out of a job. Is that -about the size of it?” - -“Probably,” admitted Maxwell. “Not that it makes any special difference -to me, personally. As you know, I have a mine up on the Gloria that -beats railroading out of sight. But I’d fight like a dog for Ford, -and for my own rank and file here on the Short Line. Of course, -Transcontinental control would mean a clean sweep of everybody: there -wouldn’t be baskets enough this side of the main range to hold the -heads that would be cut off.” - -“I suppose not. But, as you say, you have the ‘come-back’ right there -under your hand in those proxies. How will you get them to New York?” - -“My chief clerk, Calmaine, will deliver them in person. He’ll meet us -at Brewster and go right along on this train, which, by the way, is the -next to the last one he could take and make New York on time. It’s all -arranged.” - -The guest smoked on in silence for a little time and when he spoke -again it was to ask the name of the junction station at which the late -stop had been made. - -“It’s Little Butte--where our Red Butte branch comes in from the north.” - -“You’d been stopping over there?” Sprague asked. - -“No; I had my car brought down from Red Butte on the local, which -doubles back on the branch.” - -“Um; Little Butte; good name. You people out here run pretty -persistently to ‘Buttes,’ don’t you? Did I, or didn’t I, see a funeral -at this particular Butte as we came along?” - -“You did. It’s Murtrie; a mining engineer who has been doing a sort of -weigh-master’s stunt at the Molly Baldwin mine. Died pretty suddenly -last night, they say.” - -“Large man?” queried the Government chemist, half-absently; and Maxwell -looked up quickly. - -“Beefy rather than big, yes. How could you tell?” - -Sprague waved his cigar as if the question were childish and the answer -obvious. “It took a dozen of them, more or less, to put him into the -express-car.” - -Maxwell turned back to his desk. “Metallic casket, probably,” he -suggested. “They had our agent wire Brewster for the best that could -be had. Said they were going to ship the body to some little town in -Kentucky. They’re a rather queer lot.” - -“Who?--the Kentuckians?” - -“No; the Molly Baldwin outfit. The mine was opened by a syndicate of -New York people four years ago, and after the New Yorkers had put -two or three hundred thousand into it without taking anything out, -they gave up in disgust. Then a couple of young fellows from Cripple -Creek came along and leased the property. There was a crooked deal -somewhere, for the young fellows began to take out pay--big pay--right -from the start. Then the New York people wanted to ‘renig’ on the -lease, and dragged the thing into the courts.” - -“And the courts said no?” - -“The courts straddled. I didn’t follow the fight in detail, but the -final decision was that the lessees were to keep all they could take -out each month up to a certain amount. If they exceeded that amount, -the excess was to be shared equally with the New Yorkers.” - -“Lots of room for shenanigan in that,” was the big man’s passing -comment. “Unless these young Cripple Creekers are more honest than the -average, they’ll stand a good bit of watching, you’d say.” - -Maxwell laughed. “That was what the New Yorkers seemed to think. They -secured a court order allowing them to put an expert of their own on -the job. And nobody seems to enjoy the watch-dog stunt. They’ve had to -send in a new man every few weeks.” - -“Do the Cripple Creekers kill them off?” - -“No; they buy ’em off, I guess. Anyway, they don’t stay. Murtrie was -the last.” - -“And apparently he hasn’t stayed,” said Sprague reflectively; and -just then a long-drawn wail of the locomotive whistle announced the -approach of the train to Brewster. At the signal the guest rose and -tossed the remains of the bad cigar out of the window. “Here’s where I -have to quit you, Dick,” he was beginning; but Maxwell would not have -it that way. - -“Not much, you don’t, Calvin, old man,” he protested. “You’re going to -stop over one day with me, at least. No; I won’t listen to any excuses. -Give me your berth check and I’ll send my boy up ahead to get your -traps out of the sleeper. Sit down right where you are and take it -easy. You’ll find a box of cigars--real cigars--in this lower drawer. -I’ll be back as soon as I’ve seen Calmaine.” - -Apparently, the man from Washington did not require much urging. He -sat down in Maxwell’s chair as the train was slowing into the division -station, and was rummaging in the desk drawer for the box of cigars -when an alert, carefully groomed young man came in through the forward -corridor and met the superintendent as he was going out. There was a -hurried conference, a passing of papers, and the two, Maxwell and his -chief clerk, went out together, leaving the big man to go on with his -rummaging alone. - -Shortly afterward came the bump of a coupling touch, and the -office-car, in the grip of a switching-engine, raced backward through -the yards; backward and forward again, and when it came to rest it -was standing on the short station spur at the end of the railroad -head-quarters building. From the open windows Sprague could see the -long through train, with its two big mountain-pulling locomotives -coupled on, drawn up for its farther flight. It was after it had -steamed away into the night that Maxwell returned to his side-tracked -car to find his guest, half-asleep, as it seemed, in the depths of the -big wicker easy-chair. - -“I hope you didn’t think I’d deserted you,” he said, drawing up another -of the wicker chairs. “I took time to telephone home. Mrs. Maxwell’s -dining out at her sister’s, and, if you don’t mind, we’ll sit here a -while and go out to the house later.” - -There was enough to talk about. The two, who had been college -classmates, had seen little of each other for a number of years. -Maxwell told how he had gone into railroading under Ford, and how in -his first summer in the Timanyoni he had acquired a gold mine and a -wife. Sprague’s recounting was less romantic. After leaving college he -had coached the ’varsity foot-ball team for two years and had afterward -gone in for original research in chemistry, which had been his “major” -in college. Later he had drifted into the Washington bureau as an -expert, taking the job, as he explained, because it gave him time and -frequent leisurely intervals for the pursuit of his principal hobby, -which was the lifting of detective work to the plane of pure theory, -treating each case as a mathematical problem to be demonstrated by -logical reasoning. - -“You ought to drop everything else and take up the man-hunting business -as a profession,” laughed Maxwell, when the hour-long talk had come -around to the big man’s pet among the hobbies. - -“No,” was the instant objection. “That is where you’re wrong. A -man does his best work as an amateur--in any line. As long as the -man-hunting comes in the way of a recreation, I enjoy it keenly. But if -I had to make a business of it, it would be different.” Then he changed -the subject by asking about Tarbell, Maxwell’s ex-cowboy division -detective, who had served as his understudy in the “wire-devil” case a -few weeks earlier. - -“Archer is all right,” was the reply; “only he’d like to break -away from me and go with you. He thinks you are about the one only -top-notcher; says he’d like to take lessons of you for a year or so.” - -Sprague was gazing absently out of the near-by window. “Speaking of -angels,” he broke in, “there is Tarbell, right now; coming down your -office stair three steps at a jump,” and a moment later the young man -in question had dashed across to the service-car and was thrusting his -face in at the open window. - -“Trouble, Mr. Maxwell!” he blurted out. “The ‘Plainsman’s’ just been -held up and robbed at Cromarty Gulch! Connolly’s getting the wire from -Corona, and he started me out to see if I could find you.” - -The superintendent leaped up as if his easy-chair had been suddenly -electrified. - -“What’s that you say?” he demanded; “a hold-up?” Then he went into -action promptly, as a trained emergency captain should. “Call Sheriff -Harding on the ’phone, and tell him to rustle up a posse and report -here, quick! Then get the yard office and turn me out an engine and a -coach for Harding’s men. Hustle it!” - -While he was closing his desk he made hurried explanation to Sprague. -“It’s probably the Scott Weber gang. They held up a train on the main -line over in Utah ten days ago. Come on upstairs with me and we’ll get -the facts.” - -When the superintendent, accompanied by his broad-shouldered guest, -climbed the stair and entered the despatched office, fat, round-faced -Daniel Connolly was rattling the key at the train-sheet table. He -glanced up at the door opening. - -“I’m mighty glad Tarbell found you,” he broke out, with a gasp of -relief. “I was afraid you’d gone home.” And then he recognized the -square-shouldered one: “How are you, Mr. Sprague? Glad to see you -again.” - -Maxwell went quickly around to the wire-table. - -“Whom have you got?” he asked. - -“Allen, night operator at Corona. The train is there, and I’ve been -holding it to give you a chance to talk with McCarty, the conductor.” - -“Tell me the story as you’ve got it; then I’ll tell you what to say to -Mac,” was the brisk command. - -“It was in Cromarty Gulch, just at the elbow where the track makes the -‘U’ curve. Cruger’s on the pilot-engine, and Jenkins is running the -train puller. Cruger saw somebody throwing a red light at him. They -stopped, and four of the hold-ups climbed on the engines and made them -cut off the postal- and express-cars and pull on around the curve. Then -a bunch of ’em broke in the end door of the express-car and scragged -little Johnny Galt, the messenger. While they were doing that, another -bunch went through the train and held up the passengers. After they’d -gone through Galt’s car and taken what they wanted, they made Cruger -and Jenkins couple up again and go on.” - -“What did they take?” Maxwell asked. - -“Some little money and jewelry from the passengers, McCarty says; not -very much.” - -“But from the express-car?” - -The fat despatcher made a queer face and wiped the sweat from his -forehead. - -“That’s the part of it that’s hard to believe. Galt was carrying -considerable money, but they didn’t try to blow his safe. They--they -smashed up a coffin and took the dead man out of it.” - -“What!” ejaculated the superintendent; “Murtrie’s body?” - -“I don’t know who it was--Mac didn’t say. But that’s what they did. -When the boys got together and pulled Galt out from under the express -stuff where they’d buried him, they found the coffin open and the body -gone.” - -Sprague had been listening intently. - -“This seems to be something worth while, Maxwell,” he cut in. “How much -time do we have to waste here?” - -“Just a minute. Go on, Connolly.” - -“That’s all,” said the fat despatcher. “The train’s at Corona now, and -they’ve put Johnny Galt off; and--and the coffin. Mac’s asking for -orders.” - -“Give them their orders and let them go, and then clear for my special. -I’ve sent for Harding and a posse, and we’ll chase out after this thing -while the trail is warm. You’ll go along, won’t you, Calvin?” turning -to the stop-over guest. - -The man from Washington laughed genially. - -“You couldn’t scare me off with a fire-hose--not until I have seen this -little mystery of yours cleared up. Let’s be doing.” - -Five minutes farther along the two-car special train had been made up -and was clanking out over the switches in the eastern yard. As the last -of the switch-lights were flicking past the windows, a big bearded man -came in from the car ahead and Maxwell introduced him. - -“Sprague, this is Sheriff Harding. Harding, shake hands with my friend, -Mr. Sprague, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, and then sit -down and we’ll thrash this thing out. You’ve heard the story?” - -The sheriff nodded. “I’ve heard what Tarbell could tell me. He says the -biggest part of the haul was a dead man. Is that right?” - -“It seems to be. The dead man is Murtrie, who was supposed to be -representing the New York owners of the Molly Baldwin mine. The report -goes that he died last night, and his body was put on the train at -Little Butte to be taken east to some little town in Kentucky. What’s -your guess?” - -“I’d guess that the whole blamed outfit was locoed--plumb locoed,” said -Harding. “You couldn’t carve it out any other way, could you?” - -It was Sprague who broke in with a quiet suggestion. “Try once more, -Mr. Harding,” he said. - -The big sheriff put his head in his hands and made the effort. When he -looked up again there was the light of a new discovery in his eye. - -“Say!” he exploded. “Murtrie’s the last of a string of five or six -‘watchers’ they’ve had up at that cussed hole-in-the-ground gold -mine--and he’s dead. By gravy! I believe they killed him!” - -Maxwell’s smile was grim. - -“It seems to me we’re just about as far off as ever,” he commented; -“unless you can carry it along to the body-snatching in some way. Why -should they----” - -“Hold on,” Harding cut in; “I wasn’t through. It’s one thing to kill -a man, and another to get rid of the body so it won’t show up and get -somebody hanged. Murtrie was sick; that much I know, because Doc -Strader went out to the mine to see him day before yesterday. I was -talking with Strader about it, and he said it looked like a case of -ptomaine poisoning.” - -“Well?” said Maxwell. - -“Supposin’ it wasn’t natural; supposin’ it was the other kind o’ -poison: they’d have to get rid o’ the body, some way or other, wouldn’t -they,--or run the risk of havin’ it dug up and looked into, after -Murtrie’s friends took hold?” - -“Go on.” - -“That bein’ the case, they’d have to call in some sort of outside -help; they couldn’t handle it alone. Two or three of Scott Weber’s -gang’ve been seen hanging around in Brewster within the last few days. -Supposin’ these fellows at the Molly Baldwin put up a job with Scott to -make this play with Murtrie’s body?” - -“By Jove, Harding--I half believe you’ve got it!” Maxwell exclaimed; -but the chemistry expert said nothing. - -“We can tell better after we get on the ground, maybe,” the sheriff -went on. “I had Follansbee bring his dogs along. There’s a trail up -through the head of Cromarty Gulch leadin’ out to the old Reservation -road on the mesa. If they had anything as heavy as Murtrie’s body to -tote, that’s about the way they went with it.” - -Maxwell had been absently marking little squares on his desk blotter as -Harding talked. The sheriff’s theory was ingenious, but it failed to -account for all the facts. - -“There’s more to it than that,” he said, at length. And then he -appealed to the silent guest. “Don’t you think so, Sprague?” - -“I’m waiting to hear how Mr. Harding accounts for the raid on the -passengers,” said the big man modestly. “One would think that a gang of -body-snatchers would have been willing to do one thing at a time.” - -“By George! that’s so,” the sheriff acknowledged. “I hadn’t thought of -that. But then,” he added, after a second thought, “a gang that was -tryin’ to cover up a killin’ wouldn’t be any too good to throw in a -little hold-up business on the side.” - -“No,” said Sprague; but he made no further comment. So far from it, -he sat back in his chair and smoked patiently while Maxwell and the -sheriff went on with the theory-building, a process which continued in -some desultory fashion until Maxwell, glancing out of a window, said: - -“We’re coming to it; this is the gulch.” - -A few minutes later the two-car train slowed down and came to a -stand on a sharp curve at the head of a densely wooded ravine in the -foot-hills. Harding ran forward to get his posse out, and by the time -Maxwell and Sprague had debarked the ground at the track-side was black -with men. Sprague laughed softly. - -“It’s lucky we’re not depending upon the old Indian method of ‘reading -the sign,’” he said. “Whatever the ground might have told us is a story -spoiled by this time.” Then he laughed again when a man broke out of -the crowd, with a couple of dogs towing him furiously at the end of -their leashes. “We gabble a good bit about our civilization and the -advances we’ve made,” he went on. “Yet, in the relatively simple matter -of running down a criminal, we haven’t got very far beyond the methods -of the Stone Age. The idea of an intelligent being, with a human brain -to rely upon, falling back upon the instincts of a couple of brute -beasts!” - -“Oh, hold on,” Maxwell protested. “Those dogs have run down a good many -crooks, first and last. Follansbee will take any bet you want to make, -right now.” - -“And he would lose,” was the confident answer. “But come on; let’s see -what’s going to happen.” - -The chase, with the dogs running upon a comparatively fresh scent, led -up through the pine wood at the head of the gulch. Beyond the wood was -a bare, high-lying mesa table-land, with its summer-baked soil dried -out to almost rocky hardness. A hundred yards from the gulch head an -indistinct road skirted the mesa edge, and here the dogs began to run -in circles. - -Sprague was chuckling again, but Maxwell counselled patience. - -“Wait a minute,” he suggested. “The body-snatchers probably had a team -here. The dogs will get the scent of the horses presently.” - -“Think so?” queried the expert. Then he drew his companion aside. “Do -you know anything about this road, Dick?” - -“Yes, it’s the old wagon road from the Reservation into the park.” - -“Which way would you go toward Brewster?” - -“That way,” said the superintendent, pointing. - -“All right; let’s go a little way toward Brewster, and perhaps I can -show you why Mr. Follansbee would lose his bet on his dogs.” - -When they were well out of the dog-circling area, the chemistry expert -stooped and struck a match. “See here,” he said; and Maxwell, squatting -beside him, saw the broad track of an automobile tire. Sprague gurgled -softly. “Do you think the dogs will get the scent of that?” he -inquired. - -Maxwell stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. - -“Calvin, the way you hop across and light upon the one only sure thing, -comes mighty near being uncanny, at times. How the devil did you find -out that those fellows came in an auto?” - -“If I should tell you that it was pure reasoning, you’d doubt it. But -never mind the whys and wherefores just now; they can come later. Tell -me how long we’re going to stay here losing time on Follansbee and his -dogs.” - -“Not a minute longer than you care to stay. What do you want to do?” - -“I want to see that crippled express messenger who was put off the -train at Corona. Also, I’d like to have a look at the dead man’s -coffin.” - -“You shall do both. If you’re taking the case, you are very pointedly -the only doctor there is in it,” Maxwell asserted. Then he called to -the sheriff: “O Harding!” and when the county officer came up: “I’m -going to take the train and run on to Corona after Galt. We’ll stop -here for your orders when we come back.” - -During the short run around the hills to the small mining-town station, -Sprague sat quietly in his chair, puffing steadily at his cigar, and -saying nothing. When Maxwell announced their arrival he got up and -followed the superintendent into the Corona office. - -Galt, the express messenger, was lying on the night operator’s cot in -the telegraph office. Some physician passenger on the held-up train had -dressed his wounds, and he had fully recovered consciousness. His story -was a mere amplification of the wire report which had gone to Brewster. -He had marked, and wondered at, the unscheduled stop on the gulch -curve, but before he could open his door to look out, the postal- and -express-cars had been pulled on ahead, his end door had been battered -in, and he had found himself trying to fight back a couple of masked -men who were forcing an entrance. Then somebody hit him on the head and -that was the end of it, so far as he was concerned. - -Following this, the Corona night operator was put upon the question -rack. He knew only what the trainmen had told him. No; there was -nothing missing out of the express-car save the dead man’s body. While -the train was waiting, he, the operator, and the conductor had made a -careful check of the contents of the car from Galt’s waybills, and, -with the single exception noted, everything was undisturbed. No, there -was no panic; the scare was pretty well quieted down by the time the -train reached Corona. Of course, a good many of the passengers had got -out at the station stop, and everybody was curious to see the coffin. - -“You took the coffin off?” Maxwell questioned. - -“Yes, it’s in the freight-room.” - -Sprague had taken no part in the examination of the man, and had -listened only cursorily to Galt’s story. But now he became as curious -as any of the morbid passengers had been. Allen, the operator, lighted -a lantern and led the way to the freight-room. The coffin was lying -upon a baggage-truck. It was encased in an ordinary shipping-box, half -of the cover of which had been torn off. The lid of the coffin had been -broken, split into three pieces; and one of the pieces was missing. It -was a rather expensive affair, wooden and not metallic, of the kind -known as a “casket,” silk-lined, and with a sliding glass face-plate. -The glass had been broken, and the fragments were lying inside on the -small silken pillow. - -Sprague bent to examine the silent witness of the mysterious robbery -and the operator offered his lantern. But the Government man took a -small electric flash-light from his pocket and made it serve a better -purpose. Only once, while he was flashing the tiny beam of the -electric into the coffin’s interior, did he speak, and then it was to -say to Maxwell: “I thought you said this was a metallic coffin.” - -“That was the inference, when you spoke of the weight and the number of -men required to handle it. Of course, I didn’t know anything definite -about it.” - -Once more Sprague peered into the silk-lined interior, stooping to send -the light ray to the foot of the casket, which was still hidden under -the undestroyed half of the outer case. Then, snapping the switch of -the flash-light and carefully replacing the broken box cover, he nodded -briskly to Maxwell. - -“That’s all, for the present. If I were you, I’d have this coffin -nailed up in its box, just as it is, without disturbing anything. You -can manage that, can’t you, young man?” turning short upon the operator. - -Allen said he could and proceeded to do it; after which, under -Sprague’s direction, the case was trundled out to the platform, and the -three of them, with Maxwell’s private-car porter to help, loaded the -coffin upon the front platform of Maxwell’s car. - -“We’ll take it back with us,” said the Government man, with a sober -twinkle in his eyes. “It’s a passably good coffin, you know, and with a -little repairing it will do to use again--say, when we have found the -man it belongs to.” - -While the night operator, the porter, and the two enginemen were -carrying the wounded express messenger to the private car and making -him comfortable in Maxwell’s own state-room, the superintendent’s -curiosity got the better of him. - -“You’re not saying much, Calvin,” he offered. “Have you found any clew -to the mystery?” - -“Clews?--yes; I’ve found plenty of them. They’re slightly tangled as -yet, but we’ll get hold of the proper thread in a little while. When do -we start back?” - -“Any time, if you’ve seen all you want to. I’ll have Allen get orders -for us right now, if you say so.” - -The big-bodied Government man stood aside while the Corona operator -called the despatcher and obtained the order for the return of the -two-car special to Brewster. But after the bit of routine was finished -he made another suggestion. - -“I’d like to know, in so many words, exactly what was taken from the -passengers on the train, Dick,” he said. “Can’t you have this young man -catch the train somewhere and instruct the conductor to find out for -us?” - -Maxwell nodded and gave Allen the necessary directions. “Tell McCarty -to wire his answer direct to me at Brewster,” he added; and then, as -the train was ready, the start was made for the return. - -At the curve in Cromarty Gulch they found only Tarbell awaiting them. -When the ex-cowboy had climbed aboard and the homeward run was resumed, -Tarbell made his report. Harding and his posse were following the -automobile tracks on foot. It was the sheriff’s theory that, sooner or -later, the men in the machine would have to stop somewhere, whereupon -the dogs would once more be able to take up the trail. Harding was -convinced now that he was trailing the Weber gang, and he believed that -the start toward Brewster was only a blind. - -Sprague smiled again at the mention of the dogs. - -“How far is it to Brewster?” he asked. - -“About thirty miles, by the wagon road,” Maxwell guessed. - -“Good; we’re safely rid of Mr. Harding and his people, and of -Follansbee and his dogs, for some little time, I take it. Now we are -free to do a little business on our own account. I want to know -everything you can tell me about this man Murtrie; what he looked like, -what he did, and all the rest.” - -“It’s a sort of thankless job to backcap a dead man,” Maxwell demurred. -“Just the same, Murtrie always looked to me like a hired assassin--the -kind you see on the vaudeville stage, you know. He was a big, beefy -fellow, with a puffy face and a bad eye.” - -“Light or dark?” - -“Dark; black eyes and a heavy, drooping mustache. To tell the truth, -he looked as little like an expert mining engineer as anything you can -imagine. Wouldn’t you say so, Tarbell?” - -The sober-faced young man who had made his record running down cattle -thieves in Montana nodded gravely. - -“What time he put in up at the Molly Baldwin wouldn’t count for much,” -was Tarbell’s comment. “Mighty near any hour o’ the day or night you -could find him tryin’ out his ‘system’ at Bart Holladay’s faro game; -leastways, when he wasn’t hangin’ round the railroad depot.” - -“Yet you say, Maxwell, that he was sent out here by the New York -mineowners to keep cases on the gold output?” questioned Sprague. - -“Why, yes; that is what everybody said.” - -“It’s what he said himself,” Tarbell put in. - -“But you didn’t believe it?” queried Sprague, turning upon the -ex-cowboy. - -“I didn’t know just what to believe,” was the frank admission. “He -was mighty thick with Calthrop and Higgins, the two fellows that are -operatin’ the Molly Baldwin under the lease; but, as I say, he didn’t -stay there none to speak of. And as for his bein’ a minin’ sharp--I -don’t know about that, but I do know that he was a brass-pounder.” - -“A telegraph operator, you mean?” said Sprague quickly. “How do you -happen to know that, Archer?” - -“’Cause I caught him more than once ‘listenin’ in’ at the commercial -office downstairs in the depot.” - -“How could you tell?” demanded the chemist shrewdly. - -“If you was an operator yourself, you’d know, Mr. Sprague. You can take -my word for it, all right.” - -The man whose recreative hobby was the application of scientific -principles to the detection of crime, smoked in reflective silence for -a minute or two. Finally he said: “You are a much better spotter than -you think you are, Archer. It is a pity that this man Murtrie is dead. -If he wasn’t, I’d like to have you shadow him a bit more for us. Where -did you say he kept himself chiefly--in Brewster, I mean?” - -“At Bart Holladay’s road-house, on the Little Butte pike. It’s a tough -joint, with faro and roulette runnin’ continuous in the back rooms, and -half a dozen poker games workin’ overtime upstairs.” - -“I see,” said Sprague thoughtfully; “or rather, I’d like to see. Maybe, -before I go home, you’ll take a little time off some evening, Archer, -and drive me out to this road-house. It’s a free-for-all, isn’t it?” - -Tarbell grinned. “All you got to do is to give the barkeep’ the high -sign and go in and blow yourself. Anybody’s money’s as good as anybody -else’s, to Bart.” - -“All right; we’ll put that down as one of our small recreations, after -this dead-man muddle is straightened out for Mr. Maxwell. Is this -Brewster we’re coming to?” - -It was; and when the train shrilled to a stand at the station the -company ambulance was waiting to take the wounded express messenger out -to the hospital. Also, there was a young man from _The Tribune_ -office, who was anxious to get the latest story of the sensational -hold-up of the “Flying Plainsman.” Tarbell was detailed to give the -reporter the facts in the case, so far as they had developed, and -Maxwell and his guest climbed the stair to the despatcher’s room in -the second story. Connolly was rattling his key in the sending of a -train-order when they entered, but he “broke” long enough to hand the -superintendent a freshly written telegram. - -It was from McCarty, the “Plainsman” conductor, and it was dated from -Angels. - - “To R. MAXWELL, G. S., - - “Brewster: - - “Can’t find that anybody lost anything. Hold-up in Pullmans was - probably meant to keep passengers bluffed while the others went - through express-car. - - “McCARTY.” - -Sprague nodded slowly when the telegram was handed him. “That is what I -suspected; in fact, I was morally certain of it, but I thought it would -do no harm to make sure.” Then he turned to the chubby despatcher who -had finished sending his train-order. “Mr. Connolly, has any one been -here to ask questions about this hold-up--since we left, I mean?” - -Connolly looked his astonishment and nodded an affirmative. - -“Two men from out of town, weren’t they?” Sprague suggested. - -Again the despatcher nodded, and it was only his respect for the big -man that kept him from asking how the incident could possibly be known -to one who had been thirty miles away at the moment of its happening. - -“Go on and tell us about it,” Sprague directed; and at this Connolly -found his tongue. - -“It was them two fellows that are operating the Molly Baldwin mine, -Calthrop and Higgins. They’d heard of the hold-up through the operator -at Little Butte, they said, and they drove down in their auto. They -seemed to be a whole lot stirred up about the taking of Murtrie’s body; -said they felt responsible to his friends in the East. They wanted to -know particularly what we were doing about it, and if there was any -chance of our catching up with the body-snatchers.” - -Sprague waved his cigar in token of his complete satisfaction. Then he -went abruptly to something else. - -“Mr. Connolly, where can you catch that eastbound train again for us -by wire?” - -Connolly glanced at his train-sheet. - -“She’s due at Arroyo in eight minutes. It ain’t a stop, but I can have -the operator flag her down.” - -“Good. Do it, and send this message to McCarty, conductor. Are you -ready?” And when the despatcher, quickly calling the station in -question, signalled his readiness, Sprague went on, dictating slowly: -“‘Hold your train and have Calmaine, chief clerk, come to the wire.’ -Sign Mr. Maxwell’s name--that’s all right, isn’t it, Maxwell?” - -“Anything you say is all right,” was the quick response. - -“It won’t ball things up--holding your train a few minutes at Arroyo?” - -“Connolly will see to that. It’s off time now and running on orders, -anyway.” - -“Then we can sit down quietly and wait to hear from the exceedingly -capable-looking young man who has the honor to be your chief clerk,” -said the Government man, and he calmly planted himself in the nearest -chair. - -“Calmaine will probably be abed and asleep in the Pullman,” Maxwell -suggested. “I suppose your call is important enough to warrant his -getting up and dressing?” - -“It is--fully important enough; as I think you will be ready to admit -when we hear from Arroyo.” Then he extended a handful of cigars. “Have -a fresh smoke; oh, you needn’t look cross-eyed at them; they’re your -own, you know. I swiped them out of your private box in the car when -you weren’t looking.” - -Maxwell took a cigar half-absently. His mind was dwelling upon the -mystery surrounding the unexplainable hold-up, with the surface current -of thought directed toward Connolly’s sounder, through which would -presently come the expected message from Arroyo. - -It was while he was holding the lighted match to the cigar that the -sounder began to click. He translated for Sprague: “Train here. McCarty -gone to wake Mr. Calmaine.” After that there was a trying wait of -perhaps five minutes. Then the sounder began to chatter rapidly, and -Maxwell bounded from his chair. - -“Good God!” he ejaculated, “he says Calmaine isn’t on the train!” - -“Ah!” breathed the big-bodied expert, rising and stretching his huge -arms over his head. “Again we get the expected precipitation in the -test-tube. Mr. Connolly, suppose you ask McCarty if Mr. Calmaine has -been on the train at all.” - -Connolly hastily tapped out the question, and a moment afterward -vocalized the answer. - -“He was on the train when it left Brewster. Nobody seems to remember -seeing him after that.” - -Sprague turned to his host. - -“I think we can let Mr. McCarty go in peace now, with a promise that -we sha’n’t bother him again to-night. Tarbell is the man we shall need -from this on. Where has he gone?” - -Tarbell was at that moment opening the corridor door, having but now -got rid of the newspaper reporter. Sprague began on him briskly. - -“Archer, the muddle is cleared up, and I’m minded to take that bit of -recreation we spoke of a while back--at this Mr. Bart Holladay’s show -place, you know. How far did you say it is?” - -The ex-cowboy looked dazed, but he made shift to answer the direct -question. - -“About two mile, I reckon.” - -“Outside of the city limits?” - -“Yep.” - -“Then we can’t take a policeman along for protection--I’m a tenderfoot, -and all tenderfoots are nervous, you know. That’s too bad. And Mr. -Harding isn’t here to let us have the backing of the county officers. -Dear, dear! Are they _very_ bad men out there, Archer?” - -Tarbell grinned sheepishly, feeling sure that the big man was in some -way making game of him. - -“They’d eat you alive if they thought you was an officer headin’ a raid -on ’em. Otherwise, I reckon they wouldn’t bite you none.” - -“Well, I suppose we shall have to risk it--without the policeman,” said -the expert with a good-natured laugh. “Perhaps we can persuade them -that we are just ‘lookers,’” he suggested. And then: “I suppose you -have your artillery with you?” - -Tarbell nodded. “A couple o’ forty-fives. I’d hardly go huntin’ -train-robbers without ’em.” - -“Of course not. Suppose you divide up with Mr. Maxwell here, and then -go and find us an auto; just the bare car; we’ll manage to drive it -ourselves. And, Archer, get a good big one, with easy springs. If there -is any one thing I dislike more than another it is to be jammed up in a -little, hard-riding car. I need plenty of room. I guess I grew too much -when I was a boy.” - -The young man with the sober face went away, still more or less dazed; -and Maxwell dropped the weapon that Tarbell had given him into the -outside pocket of his top-coat. - -“I am completely and totally in the dark as yet, Calvin,” he ventured. -“Did you mean what you said when you told Tarbell just now that the -muddle was cleared up?” - -“I did, indeed. And it is as pretty a piece of off-hand plotting as I -have ever come across, Dick. Don’t you see daylight by this time?” - -“Not a ray. It may be just natural stupidity; or it may be only a bad -case of rattle. I blew up and went to pieces when that wire came about -Calmaine. Why, good heavens, think of it, Calvin! If the boy’s gone, -those proxies are gone, too!” - -“Quite so. And you are wondering why a good, steady, well-balanced -young fellow like your chief clerk should get himself lost in the -shuffle when his mission was so vitally important. What do you suppose -has become of him?” - -“I can’t begin to guess. That is what is driving me mad. Of course, the -supposition is that he got mixed up in this body-snatching business in -some way. But why should he? Why the devil should he, Calvin, when he -had every possible reason for dodging and keeping out of it?” - -“I don’t know,” rejoined the big man, with a head-wagging of doubt, -real or simulated. “One of the most difficult things to prefigure--you -might say the only one which refuses to come under the test-tube -formulas--is just what a given man will do under certain suddenly -sprung conditions. It is the only problematical element which ever -enters into these puzzle-solvings of mine. I haven’t the pleasure of an -intimate acquaintance with your chief clerk, but from the little I’ve -seen of him I should say unhesitatingly that he is a young man for an -emergency, quick to think, and fully as quick to act. I’m banking on -that impression and hoping that he hasn’t disappointed me.” - -“Then you know what has become of him?” - -Sprague smiled impassively. “I shouldn’t be able to convince you that -it is knowledge,” he admitted. “You’d call it nothing more than a wild -guess. Isn’t that our auto that I hear?” - -Maxwell stepped to a window and looked down upon the plaza. - -“It’s somebody’s auto,” he said. “There are two men in it.” And a -moment later--“They are coming up here.” - -The demonstrator of scientific principles hooked his elbows on the -counter railing and laughed gently. “Our two nervous friends from -the Molly Baldwin,” he predicted. “They are still worrying about the -loss of their corpse.” And even as he spoke the two young lessees of -the mine came tramping in, their faces sufficiently advertising their -anxiety. - -Maxwell nodded to the file-leader of the pair. - -“Hello, Calthrop,” he said. “What do you know?” - -“Nothing more than we did. We heard that you’d got back from Cromarty -and thought maybe you could tell us something.” - -“Not anything definite,” was the superintendent’s brief rejoinder. “You -know the facts; Murtrie’s body was taken out of its coffin and carried -off. There were auto tracks on the mesa at the head of Cromarty Gulch, -and Harding and his posse are following them. That’s all.” - -“Wh-where is that coffin, now?” It was the younger of the two who -wanted to know. - -Without looking around, Maxwell felt that Sprague’s eyes were -signalling him, but he could hardly determine why he was moved to tell -only part of the truth. - -“It was taken off at Corona.” - -The one who answered to the name of Calthrop swore morosely. “It’s the -Scott Weber gang, ain’t it, Mr. Maxwell?” he asked. - -“I think so; and Harding thinks so. But why they should steal only a -dead body is beyond me--or any of us.” - -The two young men exchanged a whispered word or two and went out, with -the anxiety in their faces thickly shot with fresh perplexity. At the -door Higgins turned for another asking. - -“If we pay the freight on it, can we have that coffin back, Mr. -Maxwell? We bought it and paid for it.” - -This time Maxwell caught Sprague’s eye and read the warning in it. -“We’ll see about that later,” he said. - -When the door slammed at the outgoing of the pair, Sprague was laughing -again. - -“After those two young fellows have turned a few more sharp corners in -the rather crooked course they’re steering, they’ll learn to take their -medicine without making faces over it,” he remarked. “Any signs of -Archer yet?” - -Maxwell turned back to the window. - -“Yes; he’s coming. He’s pulling up on the other side of the -plaza--doesn’t want to run afoul of these mining friends of ours, I -suppose.” - -“Archer has a head on him, all right, and I like him. You want to swing -onto that young fellow, Dick. He’ll make a good man for you some day. -Let’s go down and join him.” - -Tarbell waited when he saw the boss and his guest coming across the -plaza, and when his two fares were stowed in the roomy tonneau of the -big car he let the clutch in for the short run to the western suburb. -The night was clear and starlit, but there was no moon. Since the hour -was well past midnight, the streets were practically deserted. Beyond -the last of the street-crossing arc-lamps the western road led away -through a forest of dwarf pine, a broad white pathway winding among the -trees and roughly paralleling the railroad. - -At one of the shorter turns in the pike they came upon the brilliantly -lighted road-house. In appearance it was a modern roadside tavern, one -of the many which owe their sudden recrudescence to the automobile. It -was withdrawn a little from the highway, and was surrounded by ample -stables and shelter sheds opening upon a great square yard with wide -carriage gates. Tarbell backed the auto to a stand among a number of -others in the yard, and a man with a lantern came, ostensibly to offer -help, but probably to make sure that the new-comers were harmless. - -“It’s all right, Jerry,” said Tarbell, hopping out. “Mr. Maxwell and a -friend o’ his from the East. Games goin’?” - -The man nodded and held his lantern so that Maxwell and his guest could -see to get out of the tonneau. Then he turned away and left them. - -Tarbell led the way to the porch entrance and on the step explained the -sight-seeing process to the one who was supposed to be inexperienced. - -“It’s an open game, as I let on to you,” he told Sprague. “You go into -the bar and buy. After that you do as you please.” - -Sprague paused for a single question. - -“What do we find?” he asked. - -“A lot of young bloods from town, mostly,” was Tarbell’s reply. -“Holladay’s got sense enough to keep his own gang in the quiet and take -his rake-off as it comes--from the bank and the tables and the roulette -wheels.” - -Sprague made the single question a little more comprehensive. - -“I didn’t mean the people, so much as the place; if we should want to -get out in a hurry--how about that?” - -Tarbell indicated a hall door at the side of the main entrance, adding -the information, however, that it was usually kept locked. - -“Good. After we get to going, inside, you make it your job to unlock -that door, Archer, and to put the key in your pocket. Now I’m ready, -and I want to see it all.” And they went in. - -The bar-room proved to be typical of its kind: plainly furnished, with -a wide country-house fireplace and a sanded floor. As the night was -close and warm, the card-tables were ranged beneath the open windows; -only two or three of them were occupied, and the bar itself was empty. -Maxwell and his guest sat down at one of the unoccupied tables, and -Tarbell ordered for the three. When the liquor was served, he said: -“You don’t need to sop it up inside of you if you don’t want to; it’s -none too good.” - -With this for a caution the two who were warned carefully spilled their -portions on the sanded door, and Sprague ordered cigars, skilfully -juggling them when they came and substituting three of his own--or -rather of Maxwell’s. Then he made a sign to Tarbell and they began to -make a slow tour of the open game-rooms. - -The first-floor rooms, where a pair of roulette wheels were spinning -and a faro game was running, were well filled. Brewster had lately -passed an anti-gambling ordinance, and the vice had been temporarily -driven beyond the corporation limits. Maxwell saw a few men whom he -knew, and many who were well known to the Brewster police. Under the -archway dividing the red-and-black wheels from the faro table Sprague -whispered in his ear. - -“I’m looking for a man whose New York name is ‘Tapper’ Givens,” he -said. “He has a red face, black hair and eyes, and weighs about one -hundred and eighty pounds. He may, or may not, be wearing a heavy black -mustache, and----” - -Maxwell looked up with a puzzled frown. “Say, Calvin; you’re -describing the dead man,” he broke in. - -“Am I? Never mind if I am. If you should happen to see any one filling -the requirements, just point him out to me. I might overlook him in -such a crowd as this, you know.” And then to Tarbell, who had just -found them again: “Got that key, Archer?” - -The ex-cowboy showed the hall door key cautiously in his palm and -returned it to his pocket. Sprague smiled and whispered again. - -“How about the rooms upstairs? Are they open to inspection, too?” - -Tarbell shook his head. “No; private poker games, most of ’em.” - -“Nevertheless, I think we shall have to have a look-in,” said the big -man quietly. “Can’t you arrange it?” - -“Not without riskin’ a scrap.” - -“We don’t want to start anything, but we’ve just naturally got to have -that look-in, Archer,” persisted the guest. - -The grave-faced young Tennessean thrust out his jaw. “What you say -goes as she lays,” he returned, and thereupon he showed them the way -upstairs. - -At the stair-head there was a guard, a bullet-headed ring-fighter -posing as a waiter, with a square patch of an apron and a napkin thrown -over one arm. - -“Mr. Maxwell’s lookin’ for one of his men,” said Tarbell, realizing -that some sort of an excuse must be offered; and the ring-fighter, who -knew the railroad superintendent by sight, nodded and said: - -“That’s aw right; who is ut?” - -“Harvey Calmaine,” said Tarbell, giving the first name that came into -his head. - -To the astoundment of at least two of the three, the bullet-headed -guard stood aside and pointed to a door at the farther end of the upper -hall. - -“He’s in there,” he grunted. “Somebody’s been givin’ him th’ knock-out -drops, an’ they’re workin’ over him.” Then he spun around and put a -ham-like hand flat against Maxwell’s chest. “Ye’ll gimme yer wor-rd, -Misther Maxwell, that ye haven’t got the sheriff’s posse at yer back?” - -“No,” said Maxwell, and he managed to say it with a degree of coolness -which he was very far from feeling. “We’re all here; all there are of -us.” - -“Aw right; gwan in. But there’ll be no scrappin’, mind ye. If there -does be anny, I’ll be takin’ a hand, meself.” - -Sprague took the lead in the silent march to the indicated door, his -big bulk looming colossal in the narrow, low-studded hallway. Reaching -the door, he turned the knob noiselessly. “Locked,” he muttered, and -then he drew back and put his shoulder to it. - -The lock gave way with a report like a muffled pistol shot and the door -flew open. The room was lighted by a single incandescent bulb swinging -on its cord from the ceiling. On a cot which had been dragged out from -its place beside the wall lay the chief clerk, bare-footed, gagged, and -securely bound with many wrappings of cotton clothes-line. Standing -over him, one of them with the lighted match he had been holding to -the bare foot-soles still blazing, were two others; a red-headed, -yellow-faced man with one eye missing, and a thick-shouldered -athlete aptly answering to Sprague’s description whispered to the -superintendent in the room below. - -Maxwell sprang forward with an oath when he recognized the man with the -burning match. “_Murtrie!_” he exploded; and the torturer with the -black eyes and puffy face dropped the match-end and grabbed for his -weapon. He was a fraction of a second too slow. Tarbell had covered -him with a movement which was too quick for the eye to follow and was -reaching backward for the other gun--which Maxwell gave him--while -Sprague closed the door and set his back against it. - -“The jig is up--definitely up, Givens,” said the Government man -pleasantly. And then to Tarbell: “Herd those two into a corner, Archer, -while we take some of these impediments off of Mr. Calmaine.” - -When the chief clerk was freed he tried to sit up; tried and would have -fallen if Maxwell had not caught him. “They’ve burked me,” he mumbled; -“but--they didn’t make me tell, and they didn’t get--the papers.” - -“Take it easy,” said Maxwell soothingly; “You’ll be all right in a -minute or so.” Then, in a fresh access of rage: “They’ll pay for this, -Harvey, if it takes every dollar I’ve got in the world!” - -Calmaine tried sitting up again, found that he could compass it, and -reached feebly for his shoes and socks. - -“The--the proxies are safe--if it doesn’t rain,” he quavered, his mind -still running on the precious papers of which he had been the bearer. -“Get--get me out of this and into an auto and I’ll find them for you. -We might--might catch Number Six, if we hurry.” - -Tarbell, with Sprague’s help, had deftly handcuffed the two men whom -he had backed into a corner. It was the one-eyed man who first found -speech in an outpouring of profanity venomous and horrible. “You ain’t -got us out o’ here yet,” he spat, trailing the defiance out in more of -the cursings. - -“But we’re going to get you out if we have to throw you through the -window,” said Sprague quietly. Then to Maxwell: “Help the boy with his -shoes, Dick. We’re due to have a jail delivery here, any minute.” - -It took some little time to get the maltreated chief clerk shod and -afoot, and even then he was well-nigh crippled. But he was game to the -last. “They took my gun away from me,” he complained. “If I only had -something to fight with--Archer, give me that black devil’s pistol.” - -Sprague’s warning had not been baseless. The stair-head guard had -doubtless seen Sprague shoulder the locked door open, and had sprung -a still alarm. There was a hurrying of many feet in the hall, marking -the gathering of the gambling-house fighting force. While Calmaine was -asking for a weapon, the crowd in the hall began to batter at the door, -against which Sprague had once more put his huge bulk, and were calling -to Murtrie to open to them. - -Sprague gave his directions snappily, as if he were signalling his -foot-ball squad. “Draw that cot a little this way--that’s right. Now -then, Archer, stand here against the wall with your two jail-birds, and -when I give the word, rush ’em for the yard by the stairway entrance. -If they don’t obey, plug ’em, and plug ’em quick. Maxwell, you and the -boy get over on this side. When you’re ready, turn off that light. -Quick! They’re going to charge us!” - -The simple programme was carried out precisely and to the letter. When -the rush came the room was in darkness, and Sprague stepped lightly -aside. Thereupon a dozen charging men, finding no resistance in the -suddenly released door, piled themselves in cursing confusion over the -barricading cot. - -“Now!” shouted Sprague, and the dash for liberty was made, with the -big man in the lead clearing the hall of its stragglers, brushing them -aside with his mighty weight or driving them before him like chaff in -the fury of his onset. At the stair-head there were more coming up from -below: Sprague caught the bullet-headed ring-fighter around the waist, -and using him as a missile, cleared the stairway at a single throw. -“Come on!” he yelled to those who were behind; and a moment later the -unlocked door at the stair-foot gave them egress to the open air and -to the yard where the automobiles were parked. - -Quite naturally, the din of the battle had precipitated a panic in the -unlicensed road-house, and the building was disgorging, through doors -and windows, and even over the roofs of the shelter sheds. Tarbell -drove his two prisoners into the tonneau of the hired car, while -Maxwell promptly cranked the motor and Sprague lifted Calmaine bodily -to the front seat. Ten seconds beyond this, while the panic was still -at its height, the hired car, leading all others in the townward rush, -was leaving a dense dust trail to befog its followers, and the capture -and rescue were facts accomplished. - -With Tarbell at the steering-wheel, the car sped silently through the -western suburb and came into the deserted, echoing streets of the city. -Without asking any questions, the ex-cowboy drove straight to the -county jail and pulled up at the curb in front of the grim building, -with its heavily grilled windows showing their steel barrings in the -street light. Sprague passed the two prisoners out to him, jerking -even the bigger of the two clear of the auto step as if he had been a -feather-weight. But when Tarbell would have marched the pair across the -sidewalk, Sprague called out. - -[Illustration: Brushing them aside with his mighty weight or driving -them before him like chaff in the fury of his onset.] - -“Just one question, Givens,” he said brusquely. “You know what -you’re in for; you know that you are still wanted in Cleveland on that -charge of counterfeiting. But if you’ll answer one question straight, -we’ll forget the Ohio indictment for the present. What did you do with -the swag that you lifted a few hours ago?” - -For five full seconds the black-haired man kept silence. Then he spoke -as the spirit moved him. - -“It’s where you won’t get it--you n’r them make-believe crooks up at -the Molly Baldwin!” he rasped. - -“Oho!” Sprague laughed. “So you planned it to give your side partners -in this little game the double-cross, did you? It’s like you. Take them -away, Archer.” - -“And--and hurry back!” whispered Calmaine hoarsely. “We’ve simply -_got_ to catch Number Six, I tell you!” - -Thus urged, Tarbell expedited matters with the night jailer and came -running back to take his place behind the steering-wheel. - -“Where now?” he asked, dropping the clutch in; and it was Calmaine who -gave the direction. - -“The Reservation Road east; it’s the one we came in over.” - -Tarbell easily broke all the speed records, to say nothing of speed -limits, in the race to the eastward over the dry mesa country. -Twenty-odd miles from town they met the sheriff’s party, and there was -a momentary halt for explanations. “Camp down right where you are, and -we’ll go back pretty soon and send a bunch of autos out after you,” was -Maxwell’s word of encouragement; and then the big car sped on its way -toward Cromarty Gulch. - -Calmaine seemed to have preserved his sense of locality marvellously. -A few hundred yards short of the spot at the gulch head where -Follansbee’s dogs had begun their aimless circlings, he told Tarbell to -pull up. - -“They are right along here, somewhere,” he said, getting out to hobble -painfully ahead of the others when Tarbell took off a side-lamp to -serve for a lantern. “They had me blindfolded, at first, and I didn’t -know what they were trying to do with me. When they chucked me into the -auto, I tried to make a get-away. While they were knocking me silly -again, I managed to get the papers out of my pocket and fire them into -the sagebrush. It was right along here, somewhere.” - -It was Sprague who discovered the thick packet upon which so much -depended. It was lying cleverly chance-hidden under a clump of the -greasewood bushes. “Found!” he announced. And then he gave the young -chief clerk his due meed of commendation. “You’re a young man to bet -on, Mr. Calmaine. What we’ve been able to do, thus far, wouldn’t amount -to much if you hadn’t kept your head.” Then he turned quickly to the -superintendent. “How do we stand for time, now, Maxwell?” - -Maxwell held his watch to the light and shook his head dejectedly. - -“Number Six, the Fast Mail, is due at Corona in five minutes. We can -never make it in this world!” - -“You bet we can!” shouted Tarbell. “Help Mr. Calmaine, and pile into -the car--quick!” - -The short race to the near-by mining-camp was a sheer breakneck dash, -but Tarbell made good. When the four of them leaped from the car and -stormed into Allen’s office, the Fast Mail had already whistled for -the “clear” signal, and the operator was reaching for the cord of his -semaphore to give the “go-by” wigwag. They yelled at him as one man; -and a few seconds later the fast train slid to a shrieking stop at the -station. - -Maxwell would have sent Tarbell on to New York with the precious -proxies, but Calmaine pleaded pathetically for his chance to finish -that which he had begun. - -“I’ll be all right as soon as I can get into the sleeper and get these -infernal shoes off,” he protested. “It’s my job, Mr. Maxwell; for -pity’s sake don’t make me a quitter!” - -“Let him go,” said Sprague; “he’s earned his chance to stay in the -game--and this time he’ll make a touch-down.” And so it was decided. - -When the Fast Mail, with its lately added passenger, had slid away -among the hills to the eastward, the three who remained at Corona -climbed into the hired auto and Tarbell drove another record race to -town, pausing only once, when they reached the sheriff’s roadside camp, -to take on Harding and as many of his deputies as the car would hold. - -By Maxwell’s direction, Tarbell drove first to the railroad -head-quarters, where the superintendent and his guest got out. At -the office entrance another dusty car was drawn up; and in the upper -corridor they found the two young men from the Molly Baldwin mine, -still seeking for information. Sprague disposed of them, and he did it -with business-like brevity. - -“Your dead man has been found,” he told them crisply. “He is at present -in the county jail, with one of his accomplices; and when he is given -the third degree, he will probably tell all he knows. It’s a weakness -he has--not to be able to hold out against a bit of rough handling. If -you two fellows will make a clean breast of your part in the swindle to -the prosecuting attorney, and promise to play fair with your lessors -in future, it is likely that you’ll be let off with a fine, and you’ll -probably be able to bag the remainder of the gang and to recover your -lost gold.” - -The two young men heard, gasped, and backed away. When they were gone, -Maxwell unlocked the door of his business office, snapped on the -lights, opened his desk, and pressed the electric button which summoned -Connolly, the night despatcher. - -“I thought you’d like to know that we’ve caught up with the dead man, -Dan,” he said, when the fat despatcher came in; and then he briefed -the story of the chase, winding up with a peremptory order to be sent -to the division despatcher at the Copah end of the line not to let -the eastbound connection get away from the Fast Mail at the main line -junction. - -When Connolly had gone back to his key, Maxwell wheeled upon his guest. - -“It’s late, Calvin, and by all the laws of hospitality I ought to take -you home and put you to bed. But I’ll be hanged if you shall close an -eye until you’ve told me how you did all this!” - -The expert chemist ex-foot-ball coach planted himself in the easiest of -the office chairs and chuckled joyously. - -“Gets you, does it?” he said; and then: “I’m not sure that I can -explain it so that you will understand, but I’ll try. In the first -place, it is necessary to go at these little problems with a perfectly -open mind--the laboratory mind, which is neither prejudiced nor -prepossessed nor in any way concerned with anything but the bare facts. -Reason, and the proper emphasis to be placed upon each fact as it comes -to bat, are the two needful qualities in any problem-solving--and about -the only two.” - -“You are soaring around about a mile over my head; but go on,” said -Maxwell. - -“All right; I’ll set out the facts in the order in which they came to -me. First, I see a dozen men loading a coffin into an express-car. I -note the extreme weight, and wonder how a dead man, any dead man who -doesn’t have to have his coffin built to order, can be so infernally -heavy. Next, you tell me about your proxy fact--which doesn’t have any -bearing at the moment--and then you tell me about the dead man, and how -his friends were shipping him to Kentucky. Then comes the news of the -bizarre hold-up in Cromarty Gulch. Instantly the reasoning mind, the -laboratory mind, if you prefer, goes to work, with the two foreknown -facts--the heavy-dead-man fact, and the fact that your chief clerk is -on that train with his valuable papers--clamoring each for its hearing. -Don’t let me bore you.” - -“Heavens--you’re not boring me! What next?” - -“Reason, the laboratory brand of it, tells me immediately that -your proxy fact has the emphasis. You had told me that your Wall -Street opponents had been throwing stumbling-blocks in your way in -the obtaining of the proxies. Here, said I, is the last desperate -resort. Nevertheless, there were complications. I was pretty sure -that the hold-ups had taken Calmaine and his papers; that this was -what the hold-up was for. But in order to get track of them--and of -Calmaine--other facts must be added. We added them on the trip with -the special train; all we needed, and a few more thrown in for good -measure.” - -“I don’t see it,” Maxwell objected. - -“Don’t you? When we reached the scene of the hold-up, I was already -doubting the heavy-dead-man theory; doubting it extremely. Also, -my reason told me that the robbers, carrying some weight which was -heavier than any dead person, would not trust to a team which could -be overtaken, if need be, by pursuers on foot. Hence the automobile -track that we found. Then we came to the coffin, and half of the -mystery vanished at once. If you hadn’t been excited and--well, let us -say, prepossessed, you would have noticed that there was no smell of -disinfectants, that the coffin pillow wasn’t dented with the print of -a head, that the broken glass was lying on the pillow, as it wouldn’t -have been if the man’s head had been there when the plate was smashed, -that----” - -“Great Scott,” Maxwell broke in, in honest self-depreciation, “what -blind bats we are--most of us!” - -“Oh, no; I was bringing the specially trained mind to bear, you must -remember; the scientifically trained mind. You couldn’t afford to -cultivate it; it wouldn’t leave room for your business of railroad -managing. But I’ll cut it short. I saw that there had been no corpse -in the coffin, and that there had been something else in it--something -heavy enough to leave its marks on the silk lining, which was torn -and soiled. Also, I saw, away down in the foot end of the thing, an -ingot-shaped chunk of something that looked like a bar of gold bullion; -one piece of the heavy coffin load that had been overlooked in the -hurried emptying. That’s why I advised you to bring the coffin back on -your train. There’s a ten-thousand-dollar gold brick in it, right now!” - -“Heavens and earth!” gasped the listener; but Sprague went on rapidly. - -“Just here is where your machine-made detective would have missed -the emphasis. But the scientist, having once for good and sufficient -reasons placed his emphasis, never has occasion to change it. The main -thing yet was the stopping of your messenger to Ford. I was convinced -that the gold robbery, in which, of course, not only the two young -lessees, but the man Murtrie as well, must be implicated, was only a -side-issue, intended either to divert attention from the main thing, or -as a double-cross theft on the part of Murtrie. When you and Tarbell -described Murtrie for me on the way back to town, I had it all, simply -because I happened to know the man. He is a counterfeiter, whom I have -twice run down for the Department of Justice; but who, both times, -contrived to break jail and get away.” - -“But how were you able to strike so sure and hard at Holladay’s?” - -“Just a bit more reasoning; as you’ll see presently. After we had -established the fact that Calmaine wasn’t on the train--but argue it -out for yourself. They’d take him somewhere where he could be kept safe -and out of the way until the criminals concerned were all securely out -of the country. And where would they take him if not to the unlawful -den out yonder on the pike where Murtrie was best known, and from -which, no doubt, he secured his helpers for the hold-up job?” - -“But hold on,” Maxwell interrupted. “I haven’t got it entirely clear -yet. If Murtrie put up this job with Calthrop and Higgins----” - -Sprague shook his head. - -“You have no imagination, Dick. Murtrie came here to do you up in the -proxy business--as the Wall Street crowd’s last resort. He got in with -Calthrop and Higgins and showed them how to beat their game, meaning -to put the double-cross on them--as he did--when the time came. He was -merely killing two birds with one stone; but your bird was the big one. -I don’t know what sort of a dodge he put up with Calthrop and Higgins, -but I can suppose that there is a trusty confederate at the Kentucky -end of the string who is doubtless waiting now for a corpse that will -never come.” - -“Of course!” said the unimaginative one disgustedly. “Just the same, -it’s all mighty miraculous to me, Calvin--how you can reason out these -things hot off the bat, as you do. Why, Great Jonah! I had all the -opportunities you had, and then some; and I didn’t see an inch ahead -of my nose at any stage of the game!” - -The big man rose and yawned good-naturedly. - -“It’s my hobby--not yours,” he laughed; and then, as the telephone -buzzer went off with a purring noise under Maxwell’s desk: “That -will be Mrs. Maxwell, calling up to ask why in the world you don’t -come home. Tell her all right, and let’s go. It will be the biggest -miracle of all if you succeed in getting me up in time for breakfast -to-morrow--or rather, I should say, to-day, since it’s three o’clock, -and worse, right now.” - -Maxwell put the receiver to his ear and exchanged a few words with some -one at the other end of the wire. When he closed his desk and made -ready to go, a little frown of reflective puzzlement was gathering -between his eyes. - -“You know too much--too thundering much, Calvin. As I said a while -back, it’s uncanny. It was Alice; and she said the very words you said -she would: ‘Why in the world don’t you come home, Dick?’ If you weren’t -so blooming big and beefy and good-natured--but, pshaw! who ever heard -of a fat wizard? Come on; let’s go and hunt a taxi. It’s too far to -walk.” - - - - -III - -The Electrocution of Tunnel Number Three - - -AT ten o’clock on the second Tuesday after the return of the lately -promoted chief night despatcher, Dan Connolly, from his wedding trip, -the business of the Brewster wire office had settled down, momentarily -at least, into the comfortable rut of routine. Everything was moving -smoothly on the double division, and between the leisurely inscribing -of the figured entries on the train-sheet, the fat, jolly-looking -night chief had a chance to fill his corn-cob pipe and to swap a word -of gossip now and then with Johnson, the car-record operator who, as -“Wire-Devil” Bolton’s successor, was clattering at his type-writer in -the far corner of the bare room. - -It was after he had finished typing the long “record” report from Red -Butte that Johnson twisted himself in his chair to say: “Who is that -fellow ‘Scientific Sprague’ that I’ve been hearing so much about since -I came on the job, Dan?” - -The fat despatcher chuckled reminiscently and sat back in his tilting -chair. - -“Mr. Sprague? He’s a whole team, and an extra horse hitched on behind, -Shorty; that’s about what he is. Don’t you ever go around advertising -your freshness in the Timanyoni by giving it out that you don’t know -Mr. Calvin Sprague.” - -“I reckon I’ve already done done it, haven’t I?” laughed the car-record -man. “What if you fix me so I won’t have to do it again?” - -Connolly held a lighted match to the blackened bowl of the corn-cob, -and then put both match and pipe aside to take the “train-passing” -report of the incoming westbound “Quick-step” as it was clicked through -the sounder from the first telegraph station east of Brewster. - -“Mr. Sprague is about the biggest man that ever walked into this -office, Shorty,” he averred, after he had made the proper train-sheet -entry for the approaching train. “Big up and down, big through the -middle, big sideways, and biggest of all in his think-tank. He can look -you over twice and tell you the exact size of the yellow spot on your -liver; and if that won’t do, he’ll look you over again and tell you how -all-fired near you came to breaking your bond record one night up at -that little shack station you’ve been running in the mining country.” - -The newly appointed car-record man bounded out of his chair as if he -had been shot. - -“I--I didn’t, Dan!” he protested, dry-lipped; “so help me God, I -didn’t!” And then, curiosity getting the better of the sudden shock: -“How in Sam Hill did you know?” - -Connolly grinned good-naturedly and made a motion with the flat of his -hand as if he would reach across the room and push Johnson back into -his chair. - -“Take it plumb easy, kid,” he laughed. “I was only talking through my -hat--just hitting out in the dark to show you how Mr. Sprague could -size you up if he wanted to. But you asked who he is: he’s a friend -of Mr. Maxwell’s, and he lives in Washington when he’s at home--does -chemical stunts in one of the Government offices. He’s happened to soak -in here a couple of times when we were needing a bushel or two more -brains than we could make out to rustle up among ourselves, and----” - -The break came in an importunate chattering of the west-line sounder -on Connolly’s table, and the despatcher righted his tilted chair with -a thump and fell upon his key. The car-record man sat back with his -hands locked at the nape of his neck and looked on absently. Out of the -din and clatter of the several sounders he could easily have picked -the story that was coming from the west over Connolly’s wire, but the -trained operator’s habit of ignoring the irrelevant wire chatter was -upon him, and his first intimation of the nature of the story came in -the fading of the ruddy flush in Connolly’s full-moon cheeks and the -uncontrollable trembling of the despatcher’s left and unbusied hand. - -Instantly the short-legged car-record operator left his chair and -crossed the room to hang over Connolly’s shoulder. - -“What’s the trouble, Dan?” he asked. - -“It’s just a little more of the same,” breathed the fat one -vindictively. “I don’t know what in the devil has got into the trainmen -lately; this dog-blasted railroad’s getting so it runs itself! Here’s -Seventeen overrunning her orders and trying to make the west end of -Tunnel Number Three against the Fast Mail. Nophi says he argued with -’em, but they said they had plenty of time and went on. By grabs! if I -was Mr. Maxwell I’d make a sizzlin’ red-hot example of some of these -crazy chance-takers!” - -Johnson was running his eye down the columns of figures in the -time-table. - -“I wouldn’t worry till I had to,” he put in. “The Mail’s twenty -minutes off her schedule, and that gives Seventeen thirty minutes to -make the six miles from Nophi to the tunnel and the mile and a quarter -more to take her through to the west end siding. She’ll make it all -right.” - -“I know. But by Jasher! that ain’t railroading,” insisted Connolly. -“Two months ago you wouldn’t find a single train crew on the Short Line -that’d take chances stealing sidings this way, and now they’re all -doing it. Besides, the tunnel’s all tore up, with that electric-wiring -gang working in it, and every crew on the west end knows it.” - -As he fumed, the despatcher rattled his key in the call for Junico, -the only night station west of the tunnel at which there would be any -chance of communicating with the off time eastbound Fast Mail. He knew -it was only a chance. If the Mail had made up no more than five of the -twenty minutes, it would already have passed Junico. - -At the close of the impatient call the circuit broke and Junico “signed -in.” Connolly asked his question in clipped abbreviations, and got his -answer shot-like. “Number Six passing now.” “_Hold Six_,” snapped -the despatcher hurriedly. For a full minute the sounder was silent. -Then it began again. “Chased out quick as I could, but couldn’t catch -’em,” was Junico’s incident-closing reply. - -Connolly pounded with a fat fist upon the plate-glass top of his table -in impotent wrath. - -“There it is!” he gritted. “Now if anything happens to get in the way -of them cussed chance-takers on Seventeen, there you are!” - -Apparently there was nothing to be done but to await the event and -to hope for an auspicious outcome. As Connolly had said, it wasn’t -railroading; and yet he knew well enough that on many railroads the -stealing of sidings, the crawling up upon meeting-points by train crews -hard pressed to make their schedules, is a violation of rules which is -constantly winked at, and punished only when trouble ensues. - -In the present case there should have been no trouble. With a clear -thirty minutes in which to make less than eight miles, the time freight -should be safely in on the siding at the west end of Tunnel Number -Three some minutes before the Fast Mail could possibly cover its own -intervening distance. - -But on this particular Tuesday night the fates were inauspicious. -Fifteen minutes farther along, after Johnson had gone back to his table -in the corner, Connolly’s west-wire sounder began to chatter furiously. -The fat despatcher broke in promptly, and again the trembling fit -seized upon the unbusied half of him. - -“Oh, good Lord!” he groaned; and again: “Oh, good _Lord_!” -Then the corridor door opened and Maxwell, the superintendent, came -in, looking as he always did, the square-shouldered, square-jawed -fighter of transportation battles, with a few streaks of youthful gray -beginning to show in his tightly curled mustaches--a militant figure of -a man giving a truthful impression of the fit and purposeful railroad -field officer. - -“What’s the matter, Dan?” he demanded, making a quick push through the -gate in the counter railing. - -Connolly explained hastily. - -“Seventeen tried to steal a siding on Six. Gallagher, the work-line -operator at the electric gang’s camp, has just called up to say that -the freight’s stuck in the tunnel--something off the track. A flagman -has come back to the camp with the news, and he says the tunnel is -blocked so they can’t get through with a flag for Six.” - -“Good God, Dan--they’ve _got_ to get through!” Maxwell exploded; -and pushing the despatcher aside he cut in on the wire himself. There -was a brief and brittle colloquy in which the emphatic word was made -to do duty for entire sentences, a wait, and when the clicking began -again the superintendent translated audibly, quite as if Connolly, -listening with all of his five senses concentrated in the single one of -hearing, were not taking the hopeful information as it came from the -sounder. - -“Stribling’s there, and every sprinter in the camp is turning out to -do a Marathon over the hill to the west end. Just the same, it will be -touch and go if they make it in time to warn the Mail. How much late is -Six?” - -Connolly gave the time, making the proper deduction for the few minutes -made up west of Junico. Maxwell glanced up at the time-standard clock -on the wall. - -“There is an even chance,” he asserted hopefully. “There ought to be -somebody in that mob of wire-stringers who can run the two miles in -time to head off the Mail. How did you come to let things get into such -a snarl as this, Dan?” - -Again Connolly explained, and he did not try to make it easy for the -offending crew of Number Seventeen. “Jasper didn’t ask for orders at -Nophi. He simply took snap judgment and went along, leaving the Nophi -man to tell me after the thing was done.” - -“Jasper and his engineer will get thirty days on this, no matter how it -turns out!” snapped the boss. “There is a good deal too much of this -rule-breaking lately, and it’s got to stop short. I won’t have it.... -Suffering cats! I wish those sprinters would hurry up and get word to -us! My God, Dan, if that fast train gets into the tunnel before they -catch it----” - -A thunderous clangor in the station yard below the office windows cut -into the sentence, and again the superintendent looked up at the clock. - -“That’s the ‘Quick-step,’ isn’t it?” he said. “She’s bringing an old -friend of ours from the East, Dan--Mr. Sprague.” - -For a moment Connolly was able to take his mind off of the tragedy or -near-tragedy which was working itself out to some kind of a climax in -the far-away Hophra Mountains to the westward. - -“You asked him to come and tell us why we’re having this fit of extra -cussedness all over the line?” he asked. - -“Oh, no; the Department of Agriculture is sending him to make some soil -tests in the Timanyoni. He writes that he is likely to be with us for a -month or two.” - -“I’m glad,” said Connolly simply. “Somehow, you feel as if you’d got a -good solid mountain at your back when Mr. Sprague’s around. I wonder -if he’ll come up here before he goes over to the hotel?” - -Even as he spoke the door opened, and the man who looked like the elder -brother of all the foot-ball “backs” in the intercollegiate try-out -came in. - -“Hello, hello, hello,” he said jovially; “same old shop--same old -worries, eh? How are you, Maxwell? And you, Mr. Connolly? Glad to see -you both. What’s the trouble this time? Anything a journeyman chemist -can help you out on?” - -Maxwell’s mustaches took a sharper uptilt. “How did you know there was -any trouble, Calvin?” he demanded quickly. - -The big man leaned across the counter rail and laughed softly. - -“There is nothing very occult about that,” he rejoined. “You have it -written all over your faces, both of you; and it is also written in the -face of that young man over in the corner, who would like to hear what -we’re saying and can’t quite compass it.” - -Maxwell explained briefly. - -“Two of our trains are trying to get together on a single track up -at Tunnel Number Three in the Hophras. There is a break-down in the -tunnel, and half a hundred men are sprinting over the mountain to try -to head off the other train.” - -“What? half a hundred? There ought to be at least one or two good -sprinters among that many--somebody who can make your touch-down for -you. How does it come that you happened to have as big a crowd as that -on the side-lines--at this time of night?” - -The superintendent went into details far enough to account for the -crowd of volunteer rescuers. - -“We are electrifying Tunnel Number Three, and the contractors’ camp is -at this end of the tunnel. It was the contractors’ operator who sent -in the alarm, and his chief engineer turned out the entire camp for us -when I told him what to do.” - -“And you are waiting to get word?” - -“Yes; waiting and hoping. By great good luck the Fast Mail is behind -time. If it hasn’t made up----” - -A fierce clattering of the sounder on Connolly’s table tore into the -sentence, and in the midst of it Maxwell shot out his arms and drew a -deep breath. - -“Thank God!” he ejaculated, “they’ve caught the Mail! Now I’ll go with -you, Calvin.” And then to Connolly: “Straighten things out for those -fellows at the tunnel as quickly as you can, Dan, and get the wheels in -motion again. Order up the engine from Second Seventeen if they need -power to get that raffle out of the tunnel, and have somebody send -over to Lopez Canyon for Benson to take charge. If you want to reach -me, I’ll be over at the hotel.” - -At the Hotel Topaz, across the plaza from the railroad head-quarters -building, Maxwell saw his friend and sometime college classmate -properly registered for a comfortable suite, and otherwise hospitably -provided for before the pair of them went to smoke their bedtime pipes -in the deserted writing-room facing the plaza. - -“It’s just my luck, Calvin, to be homeless about every other time -you happen along,” Maxwell apologized, when the pipes were lighted. -“Alice’s father and mother came through from California a few days ago, -and carried her and the children off with them to New York and the Long -Island shore. I’m a widower.” - -“That’s all right,” laughed the big man. “I’m going to be here in your -midst for a month or more, and I wouldn’t think of camping down on you -for that length of time, anyway. To-morrow you’ll chase out and help me -find a couple of office rooms where I can set up a small laboratory; -and after that I’ll go out in the woods and dig dirt--which it is my -official nature so to do. That’s enough about me. How are you getting -along with the railroad wreckers?” - -Maxwell lighted his pipe and answered categorically. - -“We have heard nothing more, directly, from the Wall Street people -since that break they made a few weeks ago trying to hold up the -proxies I was sending to President Ford in New York,” was Maxwell’s -summing up of the current situation. “But Ford assures me from time to -time that they haven’t quit. The latest competition rate ruling by the -Interstate Commerce Commission makes it absolutely necessary for them -to own or control a shorter line than their present one to Southern -California points--this in order to protect their holdings in the big -stock pool. They’d have what they need if they could corral the Nevada -Short Line and tie it in with the Transcontinental’s branch at Copah. -Ford says they seem to consider it only a question of time until they -absorb us. The T-C. people are spending a lot of money on their Jack’s -Canyon branch, putting it in shape for heavy traffic; and they can’t -hope to get the traffic unless they get us.” - -“This tunnel trouble to-night had nothing to do with the fight, I -suppose?” queried Sprague reflectively. - -“Oh, no. That was merely the outgrowth of a curious sort of letting -down that comes once in a while on every railroad, no matter how well -it may be manned or handled. Our let-down has been coming on gradually -ever since we got over the ‘Wire-Devil’ scare. Men, good men who have -been with us for years, take chances that would make your hair stand on -end. Like this to-night,” and he went on to describe the causes which -had led up to the near-tragedy at Tunnel Number Three. - -“I see,” said Sprague. And then: “You say you are electrifying? I -thought that was a luxury in which only the rich Eastern roads could -indulge; and then only for their city terminals.” - -“It isn’t exactly a luxury in our case; it’s a working necessity. -Tunnel Number Three is part of a shortening project carried out two -years ago. It dodges under Burnt Mountain and cuts out five and -two-tenths miles of the costliest, crookedest track in Tumble-Tree -Canyon; track that we were never able to keep open for ten days in -succession during the summer season of cloud-bursts and heavy storms. -It is a timbered tunnel a mile and a quarter long, and the greater -part of it is through loose, dry shale that practically kiln-dries the -timber arching. From the time we began using it we’ve been fighting -fire in it almost daily.” - -“Just so,” said the chemistry expert. “So now you are putting in -electricity to get rid of the fire-throwing locomotives. Where do you -get your juice?” - -“In Lopez Canyon, about three miles from the eastern portal, there is -an excellent water-power. Eventually we shall use electricity for the -entire hill-pull over the Hophras and so make a very handsome reduction -in our fuel account.” - -“Good!” was the approving comment; and then the commentator came -back to the details. “Electricity is another of my pet hobbies,” he -confessed. “What company is installing you--General Electric?” - -“No; a New York firm--Grafton Brothers. I never heard of them until -they came here.” - -Only the keenest of observers would have noted Sprague’s accession of -interest at the mention of the brotherly firm name. - -“The Graftons, eh?” he said slowly. “How did you come to give them the -job?” - -“We had nothing to do with it out here. The deal was made in New York, -with the Pacific Southwestern officials.” - -Sprague was nodding absently as if in answer to some unspoken query of -his own when he said, “Have you ever met either of the Graftons, Dick?” - -“No; they are only a name to me. Their representative on our job is an -engineer named Stribling; a fine young fellow and a cracker-jack in his -business. He was the man who turned out the crowd of sprinters for us -to-night.” - -“Oho! general favorite all around, is he?” - -Maxwell laughed dryly. “He has captured everybody except the one man -who has had the most to do with him; that’s Benson, our chief engineer. -Jack is a sort of two-fisted bluffer himself--though it is only fair to -say that he usually makes his bluff good--and I think he’d always bet -on the field against a favorite. He says Stribling is too smooth; too -damned smooth, is the way he generally phrases it.” - -“I shall have great pleasure in making the acquaintance of this Mr. -Benson of yours some day,” said the man from Washington. And after that -he smoked on in silence until Maxwell was about to bid him good-night -and suggest a bell-hop and the elevator--did suggest them, in fact. - -“No, I’m not sleepy,” was the rejoinder. “I was just thinking about -railroads and tunnels and the like. If I were a railroad man, Dick, I -believe I should have a crazy horror of a tunnel.” - -“Why?” - -“Oh, I don’t know; superstition, perhaps. You know the old saying: - - Every superstition - Is a foolish superstition - Save the little superstition - Of me. - -A tunnel always seems to me like a man’s neck. One little grip and a -squeeze, and your man, though he may have a couple of hundred pounds of -other organs in perfect working order, is dead.” - -Maxwell laughed at the quaint conceit, though he was prompt to make the -timely application. - -“That would be true enough for us if Tunnel Number Three should ever be -wiped out,” he admitted. “As I have said, it is in dry shale, a good -part of it, and it had to be carefully supported by follow-up timbering -as we went along in the digging. I wanted Ford to let us keep the -roundabout track in commission, against emergencies, but he decided it -would be too expensive--as it probably would have been.” - -“And you have let the roundabout track lapse?” - -“Oh, yes; the cloud-bursts of the first summer wiped it out for us -completely.” - -“So this tunnel is really the neck of your five-hundred-mile-long man, -is it?” - -“It is. If Burnt Mountain should happen to fall in on us one of these -fine nights--which it won’t--we’d be definitely out of the game as a -through line. It would bottle us up for weeks, if not for months.” - -A slow smile spread itself over Sprague’s smooth-shaven, good-natured -face. - -“If I had as tender a neck as that, Dick, I’d have night sweats -thinking about it; I should, for a fact,” he averred. And then, after -a pause: “Ah; I’ve been waiting for that. The lights have just gone -out in your office over there in the railroad building. Who is so -industrious as to stay on the job until nearly midnight?” - -“It is Harvey Calmaine, my paragon of a chief clerk. He’s a mighty -hard-working young fellow--a treasure, as you may remember. He has been -getting up some statistics for me, and he won’t take the time out of -the working day.” - -“H’m, yes; he is a fine young fellow, Dick, and no mistake.” Then, -after he had refilled his pipe: “He still limps a little from that -foot-scorching episode in Bart Holladay’s back room--when they -were torturing him to make him tell what he had done with the -proxies--doesn’t he?” - -Maxwell turned upon his companion with a frown of mystification -wrinkling between his eyes. - -“How did you know that, Calvin?” he demanded. - -Sprague chuckled gently. - -“Some fine day, Dick, you’ll learn to use your eyes and ears. I saw -young Calmaine walking across from the railroad building just now--as -you did, only you didn’t remark it consciously; and at the present -moment I hear him coming through the lobby, with the limp very -distinctly noticeable in the click of his heels upon the tiled floor. -And now I’ll venture a guess: he is looking for you, and when he finds -you he will give you a telegram.” - -Almost as he spoke, Calmaine came up behind them. As Sprague had -predicted, he had a telegram in his hand, which he gave to his superior -with a word in explanation. “That is only a translation. The original -is a cipher, and I locked it up in the office safe. It came just as I -was getting ready to knock off.” - -Maxwell read the telegram and passed it on to Sprague. - -“It’s a little odd that Ford should use the same figure of speech -that you did a few minutes ago,” he remarked. And then, with a short -laugh, “If I were inclined to be superstitious I might wonder if your -marvellous second mentality wasn’t looking over Calmaine’s shoulder as -he translated that.” - -Sprague had glanced at the message. It read: - - “Big Nine still feeling for a strangle-hold on us. Look sharp that it - does not get its fingers on your windpipe. - - “FORD.” - -The big man passed the square of paper back to his friend and stood up -to stretch his arms over his head, yawning like a sleepy farm-hand. - -“I’ve got to set up my shop and go to work sometime to-morrow,” he -said. “Let’s go upstairs and turn in for a few lines of sleep.” - -“Not me, just yet,” said Maxwell, with a curt disregard for his -English. “I’m going over to the shack for a little while.” - -“What for?” questioned the sleepy one, with half-absent interest. - -“To try and get Benson on the wire and have him post guards in that -tunnel. There is no reason on earth for it, but between you and Ford -you’ve got me nervous on this choking proposition. Good-night, old man. -Breakfast with me in the morning, and afterward I’ll take you out and -steer you up against some of the real-estate robbers and get them to -find you an office.” - -On the following day the superintendent was as good as his word in -the office-finding matter, and by noon the Government soil-tester was -comfortably established in a couple of rooms on the second floor of -the Kinzie Building, in the same corridor with Mr. Robert Stillings, -the local attorney for the railroad company. - -The two-room suite gave him an office--which he said was about as -necessary as an auxiliary tail to a cat--and a second room in the rear -which he speedily transformed into a working laboratory, using the -young man named Tarbell, who still figured on the railroad pay-rolls as -a “relief operator,” for his errand-boy and man-of-all-work in securing -the needed furnishings and equipment. - -Later in the day Maxwell brought his brother-in-law, “Billy” Starbuck, -around to the new office, introducing him as a mine owner and a -gentleman of easy leisure, and one who knew every square acre of soil, -arable or otherwise, in the entire Timanyoni. - -“Billy has nothing on earth to do, and, like me, he is a temporary -widower,” Maxwell explained. “We married sisters, and his wife has -gone with mine and the Fairbairns to dabble in the salt sea waves at -Norman Towers. Make use of him as you can, only don’t take his word for -the gentleness of the horse you’re going to ride. He is an absolutely -truthful man on any other subject, but he never misses a chance to play -a bucking bronc’ against a tenderfoot.” - -Sprague foregathered at once with the clean-cut, rather shabbily -clothed young mine owner whose principal affectations were his worn -khaki suit, a cowboy Stetson tilted carelessly to the back of his head, -and a vocabulary of cow-camp slang which happened to be no measure -of his knowledge of grammatical English. Before he left the newly -established laboratory in the Kinzie Building, Starbuck had engaged to -go with the expert on a soil-collecting trip through the Park, the trip -to begin early in the morning of the following day, and to continue -indefinitely; or until the chief soil-hunter should be sufficiently -saddle-sore to wish to cut it short. - -“I like that brother-in-law of yours a whole heap, Dick,” was Sprague’s -verdict when he met the superintendent at dinner in the Topaz café that -evening. “He is a man with a history, isn’t he?” - -The queer look which Sprague seemed to be able to evoke at will in his -table-mate crept into Maxwell’s eyes. - -“Did you ever meet Billy before I took him into your office this -afternoon?” he asked. - -“No.” - -“Ever hear of him before?” - -“No.” - -“All right; now I’m going to try you out good and hard. You intimate -that he is a man with a history. What is his history?” - -The expert sat back, thrust his hands into his pockets, and for a -moment seemed to go into a trance, with his gaze fixed upon the ornate -decorations of the café ceiling. - -“I’ll make what you will probably call a series of wild guesses,” he -said at length, “prefacing them with the assurance, which you must take -at its face value, that Mr. Starbuck has told me nothing whatever of -himself--at least, not consciously.” - -“Go on,” said Maxwell. - -“In the first place, he is an educated man--a college man--and he talks -cowboy English only because it suits his fancy to talk it. Also, though -he wears khaki and a cowboy hat, he is quite as much at home in evening -clothes as you or I. Am I right, so far?” - -“Yes.” - -“Beyond that, he is a man of many accomplishments, most of which he is -at some pains to conceal. In his younger youth, if not later, he was a -bit wild--too much money to spend, I take it--and the wildness, or some -of its consequences, landed him in jail; no, it wasn’t a jail--it was a -penitentiary.” - -Maxwell’s look of amused half-triumph had changed to one of sober -consternation. - -“_Calvin!_” he exclaimed, in low tones. “You must know; you must -have heard----” - -“I pledge you my word, Dick; I am cutting this out of whole cloth, so -far as any outside information is concerned. But let me go on. Whatever -Mr. Starbuck was, or whatever he did, he was never a criminal in the -true sense of the word. So far from it, I can assure you of what you -doubtless know for yourself; that he is a man to tie to--a true man -and a loyal friend and kinsman. I’m going to take the field with him -to-morrow morning, and we shall come back brothers of the blood. That’s -a measure of my regard for him.” - -Maxwell put down his knife and fork and said what clansman relationship -demanded. - -“Listen,” he began, “and see how frightfully near you have shaved the -truth in your ‘guesses.’ In his early manhood Billy was a cowpunch--in -the college-graduate class, as you intimate. He discovered a mine, sold -it for a fat wad, and went to New York, where he blew in the wad to the -final dollar.” - -Sprague nodded. “That was the wild side-step that I couldn’t quite -place,” he said, and the superintendent went on. - -“When his money was gone he went to work as a stenographer for a firm -of brokers, and was holding the job down when the safe was tapped and -a sum of money stolen. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to a -term in Sing Sing, where he served his time. It was late in the first -year of his freedom before a few of us who were his friends here in -the West found out that he had voluntarily gone to prison to save -a fellow-clerk--a half-dead, broken-down scoundrel with a wife and -children, a sick mother, and a crippled sister.” - -“Fine!” Sprague was beginning to say; but Maxwell interposed. - -“No, hold on; you mustn’t set him down as an impossible hero. He’d -be the first to object to that. I said ‘voluntarily,’ and it really -amounted to that, though when Billy promised not to betray the -scoundrel he had no idea that he was going to be made to suffer in his -place. Nevertheless, since the promise had been given, Billy made good.” - -Sprague smiled. “Entirely without prejudice to a hearty and man-sized -hatred for the man who let him go in the hole, you’d say?” - -“Exactly; entirely without prejudice to that very human passion.” - -“Well,” said the expert; “my summing up was true, anyhow. I was sure -he had that kind of stuff in him, and that he had been tried out along -some such line as that.” - -Maxwell nodded, and then he became insistent. - -“Now tell me--you’ve got to tell me, Calvin, how you did it.” - -Sprague’s mellow, booming laugh earned him more than one curious glance -from the surrounding tables. - -“I can no more tell you, Dick, than I can explain why, to a majority -of people, white is white and black is black. For my own satisfaction -I define the ‘how’ as a natural growth, favored by habit and training, -of the scientific attitude; the mental slant which, if given free play, -almost unconsciously notes, marks, deduces, reasons; deeming nothing -too small or too trifling to go toward making up the whole of any -conclusion. More than that, in my own case the faculty is able to hold -itself workably aloof from the ordinary distractions of conversation -and the like. It goes on, using the outward senses when it needs them, -to be sure, but only as aids to the developing of its own little film -in its own little darkroom. Do you get the idea?” - -“Only partly. Even science has to have its raw materials to work on.” - -“Oh, yes; and the materials lie all around us constantly, if we only -know how to weigh and measure them. In Starbuck’s case, now, there -were little lapses from the cowboy talk to tell me that he was an -educated man; also, he has the true modesty of those who can really do -things. Then there were gaps in his talk, little loopholes, you might -call them, through which I could look back through the years and get -glimpses of that period of dissipation. Each glimpse revealed a tiny -ear-mark of the man who knows--who can only know--because he has been -there.” - -“Go on,” urged Maxwell, still only half-convinced that the deductions -were not, in the last analysis, only shrewd guesses. “None of these -things told you that he had been in prison.” - -“No; as to that, I’ll admit I set a harmless trap for him. I fancied -once, and then again, that I saw the prison look in his eye; the quick -side-glance that a long-term prisoner learns to give without turning -his head--notice it the next time you happen to be in a penitentiary, -if you are ever so unfortunate as to visit one.” - -“I have noticed it,” said Maxwell, and the expert went on. - -“When I saw that, the scientific mentality said instantly, ‘That look -wasn’t acquired in a jail term--it took longer.’ The next suggestion -followed as a matter of course. Every long-term man answers to a number -instead of to his name. At the moment I was numbering the bottles of -chemicals which Tarbell had been buying for me, and I turned the talk -upon my peculiar system of labelling--by numbers. Starbuck himself did -the rest. He said, ‘I reckon I wouldn’t rent even a post-office box if -it had to have a number on it.’ That was all, but it was enough.” - -Maxwell was toying with his dessert. - -“As I have said several times before, Calvin, you are almost uncanny -now and then. You know too much. Some fine day it will strike in on -you--sour on you and make you sick.” - -Sprague’s mellow laugh sounded again. - -“I haven’t begun to tell you all I know. For example, I might say that -all through this spell of gossip about your brother-in-law you’ve been -giving the subject no more than a scant half of your mind. The other -half has been tussling with your railroad involvement, and you’ve been -wondering where the Big Nine is going to land on you next. What do you -hear from Tunnel Number Three?” - -“Nothing much; or at least nothing out of the ordinary. They got the -tangle straightened out last night after a time. Benson wires that -Stribling put the entire electrifying force under his orders, and was -all kinds of nice about it.” - -“‘Electrifying,’” repeated Sprague musingly. “A slight change in the -spelling would make it ‘electrocuting,’ wouldn’t it? How long will it -be before the installation is completed?” - -“They are starting the turbines in Lopez Canyon to-day, for a try-out. -The wires are all strung, and Stribling is installing some sort of a -safety contrivance in the tunnel as a finishing touch; a switch of some -kind that will shunt the current in case any accident should happen -to a train in transit. It’s all Greek to me--and to Benson, for that -matter. Neither of us knows enough about electric installations to keep -us from spoiling.” - -“But the date,” said Sprague, with the amiable persistence which was -one of his chief characteristics. “When will the current be turned on?” - -“Stribling sends word that he will be ready to cut the power in on the -tunnel wires to-morrow evening at six o’clock, and asks if I’m going to -be on hand to see it done.” - -Sprague was deftly clipping the tip from one of the cigars which the -waiter had brought, preparatory to lighting it. - -“Do you happen to have a time-table in your pocket?” he asked. - -Maxwell had one, and he passed it across the table. The Government man -postponed the lighting of his cigar and began to turn the leaves of the -official schedule hand-book. At the pages listing the trains on the -Hophra Division he paused and ran his finger slowly down the columns -giving the movement of traffic to and through Tunnel Number Three. - -“You would have to leave here early in the afternoon to reach the -tunnel by six--or rather to be there at six--wouldn’t you?” he asked, -returning the time-table. - -Maxwell shook his head and smiled. “You forget that I’m not tied to -regular trains on my own piece of railroad,” he suggested. “I couldn’t -afford to go up on Three and spend two or three hours loafing around. -If I go, I shall order out a car and engine and make a quick job of it. -It is only sixty-three miles, and I can make it special in an hour and -thirty minutes or thereabouts.” - -“I see,” said Sprague reflectively. “Leaving Brewster about -three-thirty, say?” - -“Yes; that would be plenty early enough.” - -“But you don’t know yet whether you will go at all?” - -“No. There is a delegation of ore-shippers coming down from Red Butte -to-morrow, and I’ll be busy with it a good part of the day.” - -After that the talk drifted to other things, among them the expert’s -mission to the Timanyoni, which, he admitted in confidence, was the -preliminary to a possible Government reclamation project. And finally, -when Maxwell broke away to go back to his office across the plaza, his -going or not going to the tunnel to be present at the turning on of the -power current on the following day was left undecided. - -According to the prearranged programme, Sprague left Brewster at -daylight the next morning, riding with Starbuck to the upper valley of -the Gloria where the first of the soil specimens were to be collected. -But for some reason, saddle-soreness on the part of the tenderfoot, or -another, the trip was a short one, ending a little after noon, when the -two came jogging back through the Brewster streets. - -From their corner table in the Topaz café, where they ate their late -luncheon together, they saw Maxwell entertaining a party of the -ore-shippers; and later Sprague, whose half-absent gaze seemed to miss -nothing, saw a good-looking young fellow in shabby, work-stained brown -duck push through the swinging glazed doors opening from the lobby and -go around to whisper to Maxwell at the table of entertainment. Sprague -called his companion’s attention to the new-comer. - -“That will be Mr. Benson, chief engineer of the railroad, for a guess,” -he ventured; and Starbuck nodded. - -“Right you are. It’s Jack; and to look at him you sure wouldn’t think -he was a married man, with a nice, tidy little wife at home, would you, -now? He always looks as if he had just tumbled out of the dirtiest car -in his work-train.” - -The soil expert smiled leniently. “Possibly he is here on business, and -sometimes business won’t wait,” he suggested. “See; your brother-in-law -is excusing himself to the ore people and is going out with Benson. -After we finish our luncheon I’ll ask you to do me a little favor, Mr. -Starbuck. Find Mr. Maxwell and tell him we’re back--just on the chance -that he didn’t see us over here in this dark corner of ours. I’d like -to meet Mr. Benson, if it can be managed without too much trouble.” - -Starbuck’s keen gray eyes searched the round, double-chinned face of -his newly made acquaintance shrewdly. - -“I reckon I’m on,” he said slowly. “I was beginning to climb on before -you said anything. That New York crowd is after Dick and his railroad -with a black-snake whip; I know that much. Is the whip getting ready to -pop again?” - -“I’m a little afraid it is, Mr. Starbuck, and I am hoping that Mr. -Benson will be able to tell us whether it is or isn’t,” was the -even-toned rejoinder. “At all events, I’d like to meet him and have a -talk with him--some time before three o’clock. Bear the hour in mind, -will you, please? and try to arrange it for me.” - -“Sure,” said Starbuck; and when they rose from the table he went in -search of the superintendent and Benson, leaving his luncheon companion -to go around to the Kinzie Building laboratory alone. - -It was something less than half an hour after Sprague had stripped his -coat and gone to work on the soil specimens of the morning’s gathering -when Starbuck came in, bringing Maxwell and Benson. As Starbuck made -it appear, the visit was merely a neighborly drop-in, with no better -excuse than the expressed purpose of introducing Sprague to a possible -helper. - -“I thought you might be able to use Jack in some way, Mr. Sprague,” he -said, after the introduction was a fact accomplished. “He sure knows -a heap more about Timanyoni dirt than anybody else between the two -ranges; carries right smart of it around on his clothes a good deal of -the time.” - -Benson took the joke in good part; and when Sprague had found and -opened a box of his irreproachable cigars, the talk, touching lightly -at first upon Sprague’s business in the West, came around, or was -brought around, to Benson’s part in the electrification job. The big -expert with the fighting jaw and the sympathetic gray eyes had a way -of leading even a reticent man to tell of his troubles; and Benson, -knowing the part Sprague had taken in defeating the two previous -attempts to wreck the Short Line, felt free to unburden himself. - -“I can’t make Maxwell, here, believe that Stribling is anything but the -fine, open-handed young fellow that he seems to be; but I want to tell -you three together what I have often told Maxwell: I’ve got a hunch. -I don’t _know_ a blessed thing. Stribling has always treated me -fine, and he is a fellow you can hardly help cottoning to, right from -the jump. But some way something inside of me keeps on telling me that -he’s too smooth--too damned smooth. Last night, for instance, in that -derailment muddle--there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do, didn’t do, -to help us out. He packed his men into the tunnel so thick that nobody -could get near that derailed car; in fact, he had the car on the rails -and the train backing out before I could get any action at all.” - -“What caused the derailment, Mr. Benson?” Sprague put in quietly. - -“That was one of the things that made me hot. Stribling’s messing in -made it impossible for anybody to tell. There was nothing the matter -with the track or with the car, so far as I could see after the thing -was over. Bamberg, the engineer who was pulling the train, swears that -somebody flagged him down with a red light when he was about half-way -through the tunnel, and he stopped. Then the red changed to white -and gave him the ‘go-ahead.’ When he tried to start his train, this -box-car, somewhere along in the middle of things, jumped the track and -blocked the tunnel. He felt the jerk and stopped again.” - -Sprague waved a hand in token of his complete satisfaction. - -“Suppose we ignore this train tangle for the present and come to other -things,” he interposed. “I’ve been wondering if you could describe for -me, briefly, the details of this tunnel installation, Mr. Benson?” - -“Why, yes; it’s simple enough--it’s merely a trolley line on -a big scale: two heavy copper trolley wires strung through on -catenary brackets, with double insulation. That’s all, except the -safety-switches--cut-outs--one at each end and one in the middle of the -tunnel.” - -“Ah?” said the expert, mildly interested at last; “one in the middle, -you say? What is that for?” - -“It is the real safety device, Stribling says; the others are merely -mechanical cut-outs for the use of the wire repairers. He was -explaining it to me this morning when he was connecting it in with the -power wires. It’s an ordinary oil-protected switch so adjusted that in -case an accident happens to a train in the tunnel the circuit will be -broken automatically and the live-wire current cut out. It’s a good -thing, you’d say. It would make your flesh creep to think what it would -mean to have those high-power wires short-circuiting into a wreck.” - -“We won’t think of it,” said the big man quizzically. “We’ll think -rather of this Mr. Stribling and your--thus far--unexplained -suspicions. How did he contrive to send you down here to-day?” - -Benson looked up quickly. - -“How did you know he sent me? I didn’t say he did, did I? But I guess -that is what it amounts to. He made it a sort of personal matter; urged -me to come and bring Mr. Maxwell back with me; said that on a job as -big as ours he didn’t want to take any chances with his reputation as -an electrical engineer or leave any room for a misunderstanding. He’d -like to have Maxwell go foot by foot over the installation and see that -everything is all right and safe before the power is turned on and the -first electric train is sent through.” - -Sprague put his face in his hands and for a few seconds the silence in -the makeshift laboratory was unbroken. Then suddenly he came to life -again. - -“You were telling us about this internal safety device,” he broke out -abruptly. “It’s an oil-switch, you say?” - -“Yes; there is an iron tank to hold the oil, and----” - -“Hold on; where do you find room in the tunnel for a tank?” - -“In one of the side excavations. When we were driving the tunnel we -left side niches every two hundred feet or so; safety-holes for the men -in blasting, and places where we could store dynamite and tools out of -danger and out of the way.” - -“Stop. Was this particular dodge-hole where the safety switch is placed -ever used for dynamite storing?” - -“Yes; there are a lot of empty boxes in it now. In the arching, the -timber-setters had covered them in, I suppose, and they were overlooked -in the cleaning out.” - -“You are sure they are empty?” - -“Oh, yes; they’re empty all right. Stribling called my attention to -them this morning, and I kicked over two or three of them, at his -suggestion, just to make sure that they were empty.” - -“I see; he called your attention to them, did he? That is interesting, -but not nearly as interesting as this oil-switch you’ve been trying to -describe for me. Go over it again, will you?” - -The young chief engineer was evidently disappointed. The scientist -of whose gifts he had heard so much seemed to have a brain in which -pertinacity, the pertinacity which clings helplessly to trivial and -perfectly obvious things, was the over-shadowing faculty. - -“I don’t know that I can make it any plainer,” he said, with a touch of -impatience. “It’s just an ordinary electric circuit-breaker, the same -as they use on street-cars, and it is buried in oil to keep it from -arcing--as all switches are when they’re under voltages as high as ours -will be. The mechanism is suspended in a tank by its own wires, and the -tank is filled with oil. I was there when they were filling the tank -this morning, and Stribling poured a queer sirupy mess in on top of -it--some patent stuff to keep the oil from thickening under exposure, -he said.” - -“A patent mixture, eh? I’m interested in patents,” said the listener, -going off at another of the blind tangents. “How did it come--in a can?” - -“Yes; in four square cans, holding about a gallon or so each, I should -say. They were packed in a box--like varnish cans, you know--only they -were taller and not so big in section.” - -“I suppose you weren’t near enough to notice any name or advertisement -on these cans, were you?” - -Benson had by this time lost all hope of finding anything like -continuity in the big man’s mind, but he answered the query. - -“Yes, I was near enough; Stribling was up on the tank and I passed the -cans up to him, one at a time--and spilled the stuff all over me doing -it. There wasn’t any name on them. They were just plain square tin -cans; that’s all.” - -Sprague got up and crossed over to Benson’s chair. - -“Spilled it on you, eh? Is this the stain of it on your coat?” he -asked; and when Benson nodded: “It’s too bad to spoil a perfectly good -working-coat that way. Suppose you let me have it and I’ll see if I -can’t take those spots out of it.” - -Benson obeyed, half-contemptuously, and, together with the two who -had taken no part in the colloquy, looked on curiously while the -expert, who had apparently lost all interest in everything save the -coat-cleaning, swiftly treated the stained patches with various -chemicals, put the resultant washings into a beaker and began to add -ingredients from sundry bottles on the laboratory shelves, holding the -beaker to the light after each fresh addition to note if there were -changing colors in the solution. - -At the close of the rapidly conducted experiment he poured a little of -the solution into a tiny test-tube, which he proceeded to heat over -the flame of a small alcohol lamp. This part of whatever experiment -he was attempting appeared to be unsuccessful. Almost immediately the -test-tube cracked with a miniature explosion, scattering bits of broken -glass and extinguishing the flame of the little lamp. - -Sprague tossed the neck of the shattered glass tube aside and returned -the brown-duck shooting-coat to its owner. Benson put it on, and -was curious enough to say: “Did you think you could find out what -Stribling’s protective mixture was from those grease-spots?” - -“Mere force of habit,” laughed the chemist, putting on his own coat. -“I’m obliged to analyze everything I get hold of, you know; it’s a sort -of disease with me, I guess.” - -“But could you tell what it was, just from those discolored washings?” -queried Maxwell. - -“Perfectly. Mr. Stribling’s ‘patent’ is a compound in which the chief -ingredient is a grease derived from the spent lye of the soap-makers, -and one of the principal uses of which in the arts is, as Mr. Stribling -says, to keep oils, and other things, from drying out.” Then, more -pointedly to the superintendent: “I suppose you’ll go up to the tunnel -and look the job over, making our careful young friend Stribling -entirely happy, won’t you?” - -Maxwell looked at his watch. - -“Perhaps I’d better. Benson wants to get back, anyway. Will you two go -along?”--to Sprague and Starbuck. - -“I don’t mind,” said the expert, with a barely perceptible nod to -Starbuck; and after he had rearranged the chemicals on his newly made -shelves the four left the office and had themselves dropped to the -ground floor of the building. - -It was while they were walking two and two down the street that Sprague -dropped a few steps behind with Starbuck and passed him a carefully -wrapped package which he took from under his coat. - -“I have another little experiment in mind, Mr. Starbuck,” he said in -low tones. “When we are on our way through the tunnel, watch your -opportunity to drop out of the procession long enough to empty the -contents of that package into the patent grease, which you will find, -not floating on the oil, but in some sort of a receptacle let into the -top of the oil-tank of that safety contrivance which Mr. Benson has so -accurately described for us. I’m curious enough to want to prove up on -my analysis of a few minutes ago--to see if it was correct.” - -“What will happen if it was correct?” - -“Nothing; nothing alarming, I assure you. But be careful not to get any -of the stuff in that package on your hands when you break the paraffin -seals. And perhaps it might be as well if you don’t let our young -electrical friend see you do it. He might think we were messing in -where we had no business to.” - -Starbuck made a sign of complete understanding, and a few minutes -later, when they reached the main street, made a time-saving -suggestion. - -“Suppose you folks take a taxi to the roundhouse,” he said. “I’ll mosey -up to the despatcher’s office and get your clear-track orders for you.” - -Maxwell approved the suggestion and they separated, Starbuck catching -a passing electric car for the plaza-fronting railroad head-quarters, -and Maxwell impressing the first auto hack he could find to take the -remaining three of them directly to the western yards. The hackman -drove across the city and let them out at the nearest street-crossing, -and from thence they walked the final hundred yards over the ties of -the shop track. - -At the roundhouse door they met a big, bearded man whose carefully -creased brown hat and rather vociferous business suit would have -marked him elsewhere as a gentleman of elegant, if somewhat -precarious, leisure. Judson Bascom was this gentleman’s name, and he -was comparatively a new-comer in the Short Line service; having been -appointed to succeed Fred Dawson, master mechanic, promoted. - -Bascom was stooping to pat a stray dog, but he rose to his feet when -the three came down upon him. - -“You’re the man we’re looking for, Bascom,” said Maxwell shortly. “I -want a light engine to go up to Tunnel Number Three. What have you got -in?” - -The big master mechanic twiddled the bunch of charms on his watch-fob, -and the stray dog began to sniff warily at Benson’s heels. - -“The Nine-fifteen’s got fire in her; will she do?” - -“Yes. Get me a crew as quickly as you can. I want a man who isn’t -afraid to run.” - -The man in the brown hat and the loud plaids dragged out a fat gold -watch and shook his head. - -“I guess that’ll be me. There’s nobody ’round, and I suppose you -wouldn’t want to wait until I can send the caller out after somebody?” - -“No; I’m in a hurry,” snapped the boss. “Let’s get a move. My car is in -the shop, so you can couple onto that caboose over there on the split -track. There are four of us to go, and we’d crowd you in the cab.” - -Big and leisurely-looking as he was, the master mechanic made good -time. In a minute or two he had the smart, light eight-wheeler on -the turntable, with the blower roaring, a red-headed pit-boy to -fire, and half a dozen roundhouse men to put their shoulders to the -table-levers. The shifting took five minutes more; and by that time a -switching-engine, with Starbuck hanging from the step, came racing -down the yard from the mile-away head-quarters. - -Starbuck swung off before the switcher came to a stop, and joined the -three who were waiting at the step of the caboose. - -“Hell’s a-poppin’,” he said laconically. “Davis hasn’t got a single -west wire that he can use. They all went out, blink, about twenty -minutes ago.” - -“What’s that?” demanded Maxwell. “Not all of them, surely!” - -“Every blamed one--commercial wires and all. Can’t get a whisper out of -anything west of Little Butte. He says it acts like a general ‘ground,’ -and then again it don’t.” - -The nattily dressed master mechanic had dropped from his engine-step to -come and join the group at the caboose. Maxwell put him in possession -of the blockading fact in a brief sentence. - -“The wires are dead and we’ll have to bluff our way from siding to -siding. Are you game for it, Bascom?” - -The big man inclined his head. “I guess so,” he said. - -“All right. Go to Little Butte for the first lap. There is nothing in -the way between here and the junction. All aboard, gentlemen.” - -The start was made briskly enough, but two miles beyond the yard-limits -the caboose-car chucked noisily as Bascom slowed for the single-span -bridge over the Gloria. - -“Good Gad!” raged Maxwell, jumping up and jerking the air-whistle cord -for full speed ahead. “If he’s going to slow up for every trestle we -come to, we’ll never get anywhere!” - -“We can prod him,” said Benson. - -For the few miles intervening between the bridge and Little Butte the -master mechanic did not need prodding. Taking the air-whistle hint for -what it meant, he hurled the wild train around the curves and over the -tangents wholly without regard for the comfort of the four men who -vainly tried to keep their seats on the bunk benches in the caboose. -At Silver Switch the landscape was merely a blur; and in rounding the -great side-cut at the Butte bluff the short car shrieked and groaned -and seemed to be riding like a toe-balancer on the outer rail. - -At the Little Butte stop the four made a dash for the operator’s -office, where Bascom presently joined them. There was no information to -be got out of Wooffert, the station agent. His wires were working north -on the Red Butte branch, but there was a dead “ground” somewhere to -the westward. Broken snatches were still coming through from Caliger, -ten miles up the main line west, and the instruments acted as if -somebody had been pouring cold molasses into them. - -Maxwell had his pocket time-card out, though he did not need to consult -it. “Sixteen and Eighteen are somewhere between here and Nophi,” he -announced. “We’ve got to find and pass them as we can. Let her go, -Bascom.” - -A half-minute later the up-valley race was begun. In the lower reaches -the tangents were long, giving the volunteer engineer measurably safe -sights ahead; and there was no occasion for Maxwell to jerk the whistle -cord. Again the big man in the engine cab was hurling the train along -with small regard for anything but speed. - -At Caliger another stop was made. Like the man at Little Butte, the -operator knew nothing save that his wires were dead. At his last report -both of the down-coming freight trains had been on time. Maxwell did -some quick figuring. - -“We’re pretty safe to run to Hatcher’s,” he told Bascom. “That will -give us five minutes against Sixteen, provided she’s not running ahead -of her schedule. Can you make Hatcher’s in forty minutes?” - -“I’ll make it or land this outfit in hell,” said the master mechanic -grittingly. And once again the wheels began to spin. - -It proved to be a close call at Hatcher’s, the little “blind” siding in -the upper valley. One mile short of the passing track Bascom began to -blow his whistle like a madman, and the four on the caboose, leaning -far out on the platforms, saw a long freight lumbering down from the -west. A short, stabbing puff of steam from the freight locomotive’s -whistle, soundless because of the din of hammering wheels and shrieking -flanges, told them that the freight engineer had seen and heard and was -trying to stop. Also, it was apparent to the two who looked on with -railroad knowledge that the stop could not be made within the siding’s -switch limits. - -Bascom took a chance and a risky one. Speeding like a fiend, he sent -his one-car train onward to what promised to be a smashing head-on -collision with the freight. But at the lower switch, with the slowing -freight less than three hundred yards away, he made a grinding stop; -his fireman leaped from the gangway and ran to turn the switch; and -an instant later the wild train was snatched in on the siding and the -freight was rolling past in safety over the reset switch. - -“Good work!” said Sprague, speaking for the first time since the -departure from Little Butte. “This man Bascom may not be the heavy -villain that he looks to be, but he is certainly carrying his nerve -with him this afternoon.” - -Maxwell was leaning out and shouting to the volunteer in the cab. - -“Easy, Bascom!” he yelled; “they’re carrying green!” - -Bascom looked back and nodded; and the red-headed fireman strolled on -ahead to take his stand at the upper switch. - -“Anything significant about the St. Patrick’s Day color?” queried -Sprague; and Maxwell said there was. - -“It means another section following,” he explained; and then: “Here it -comes!” And as he said it, another freight came into view, plunging -around the curves toward the siding. - -Unhappily for the speed-making purpose, this train, too, was carrying -green, and Maxwell swore impatiently to the universe in general. “Three -sections to this; and Eighteen’s pretty sure to have two or more. It’s -three fifty-five, right now, and we’ve got thirty miles to go!” - -Benson laughed. - -“Stribling will wait until the last minute for you, never fear. With -two hours we could mighty near get out and walk it.” - -“I reckon we’re going to get a chance to walk a piece of the way,” -said Starbuck in his slow drawl. “That maverick choo-choo wrangler up -ahead will have us in the ditch before he hits the Nophi grades, if he -keeps up his lick.” - -“I don’t want to call him down,” said Maxwell, dubiously. “He’s -probably got a grouch because I pulled the string on him back yonder at -the Gloria bridge.” - -“There comes the third section!” Benson called out; and a minute -afterward the third and last division of the overland freight went -hurtling past on the main track. - -Bascom’s makeshift fireman was promptly on his job. While the tail-end -of the third section was clanking over the frogs he jerked the switch, -and at the same instant the master mechanic jerked the throttle of the -Nine-fifteen. The wild train shot out into position on the main line, -halted for the fraction of a minute needed to enable the fireman to run -up and scramble to the footboard, and the breakneck race was continued. - -By this time none of the four thought of going back into the caboose. -They were crowded together upon the front platform, ready to make the -leap for life which seemed momentarily imminent as Bascom snatched -the short car recklessly around the curves and over the switches at -the various stations. Train Number Eighteen, also a through freight, -was scheduled one hour behind Sixteen; but in the absence of all wire -reports of its progress, nobody knew just where it would be found. - -As a matter of fact, it was met between two sidings, ten miles on the -hither side of Nophi; and, happily for the safety of all concerned, -the meeting with the first section chanced upon a piece of straight -track--one of the exceedingly few tangents in the rough, gulch-like -valley known as Tumble-Tree Canyon. As before, Bascom held his whistle -open, and, thanks to the brakes and a liberal sanding of the rails, a -collision was averted. - -When the two locomotives were nose to nose, and a flagman was racing -frantically back to flag the following section, Maxwell sprang off and -fell upon the conductor of the freight. - -“How many sections of you?” he demanded explosively. - -“Two,” said the man, putting up an arm as if he expected to be hit. - -“How close are you?” was the next shot-like question. - -“That’s them, comin’ now,” said the conductor, as a hoarse whistle -bellow answered the racing flagman’s stop signal. - -Two miles back of the halted freights there was a disused saw-mill -spur, not over a hundred feet long, to be sure, but it would serve. -Maxwell’s decision was made instantly. - -“Back up, both of you, until we can get in on Crawford’s spur,” he -ordered; and as the conductor started to run to the rear; “Don’t waste -time doing that! Whistle for ’em, you blockhead!” and he made impatient -motions as of an engineer pulling the whistle-lever. - -The first-section engineer, leaning from his cab window, heard, saw, -and understood. Three shrieks of his whistle were answered by three of -the hoarse bellows from the rear, and the two long freights began to -pound heavily in the reverse motion up the grade. - -“Push ’em, Bascom!” shouted Maxwell, as his own engine crept up after -the retreating first section. “We’ll go in at Crawford’s and let ’em -by.” - -The two miles to the passing point, worried out slowly at the pace set -by the laboring freights, seemed to stretch themselves out into ten. -Sprague was looking at his watch. - -“Sixteen miles yet, you say, and we have an hour and twenty minutes in -which to make them. That looks as if we were still margined well enough -to pull through.” - -“I guess so,” said Maxwell. The laboring freights were at last backing -around the curve from which the saw-mill spur branched off, and again -the red-headed fireman was on hand with his switch-key. Luckily the -unused lock did not refuse to work, and presently the light rails -of the abandoned spur were buckling and bending ominously under the -Nine-fifteen, as Bascom trundled the wild train out upon them. - -Almost immediately the whistles screamed again, and the two freights -slid away down the grade. “’Right!” yelled the red-headed one, shifting -the rusty switch again; and once more the race was resumed. - -When the Nophi smelter stacks came in sight in the vista opened up by -the flying swing around the mountain of approach, four watches were out. - -“We’re nearly an hour to the good yet,” cried Benson. - -“Yes; and we ain’t there yet,” said Starbuck, who seemed to have -acquired a pessimistic slant. - -Maxwell swung far out as they were rounding the great curve and got a -clear view of the small smelter-town yard. Straightening up, he pulled -the whistle cord to attract Bascom’s attention, and then leaned out and -made the necessary hand-signal to run through the small town without -stopping. - -In some inexplicable way the signal, or rather the giving and receiving -of it, proved fatal. Bascom looked back to nod his understanding, and -when he faced about again he saw, too late, that a box-car, set out by -one of the lately passing freights on the smelter-loading track, had -“drifted” down the siding to a point at which it would not clear the -main line. There was a ripping crash, a roar of steam escaping through -a broken cylinder, and the race, so far as Engine Nine-fifteen was -concerned, was over. - -When the four passengers had picked themselves up out of the heap into -which the sudden stop had piled them, they went forward to see what was -to be done. There was nothing to be done locomotive-wise; but there was -still plenty of time, even if the six remaining miles should have to be -covered by a picked-up team borrowed from the smelter folk. - -But the team expedient proved unnecessary. At the Nophi station they -found a section gang at work, with a hand-car available; and on the -“pump special” they made their entry, some thirty minutes past five, -into the Grafton Brothers’ camp at the eastern tunnel approach. - -Stribling, a handsome young fellow with a frank, open face and honest -eyes, was on hand to meet them. - -“By Jove, Mr. Maxwell!” he said, with what was apparently a most -palpable relieving of anxious strain, “I was afraid you weren’t coming, -and I’d just about made up my mind to ’phone over to Lopez to tell -Canby and the rest of them that we’d postpone. I’ve got my record to -make yet, most of it, and I couldn’t afford to turn that power on and -start an engine through until after you and Benson have gone over the -completed installation with me.” - -“Well,” Maxwell rejoined, “that’s what we’re here to do. You know -Starbuck, my brother-in-law? I thought so. Now shake hands with my -friend Sprague, of the Department of Agriculture, and we’ll go through -with you.” - -Starbuck was watching Stribling’s face when the young electrical -engineer shook hands with the big man from Washington. There was a -query in the younger man’s eyes, and Starbuck saw it. Also, he marked -the half-second of hesitation which came between the introduction -and its acknowledgment. But a moment later they were all on their -way to the black-mouthed tunnel, Stribling walking ahead with the -superintendent and Sprague, and Starbuck following with Benson. - -For convenience in his work Stribling had set up a small steam-driven -dynamo at his camp and had strung the tunnel with incandescents, -hence there was plenty of light in the long bore for the examination -of the power wiring. When they plunged underground the construction -man was still walking ahead with Maxwell and Sprague, explaining, for -the benefit of the superintendent’s guest, the design of the catenary -brackets and the double set of insulators. - -“I’m betting on every detail in the mile and a quarter,” the young -engineer was saying, as the two laggards closed up. “It’s my first big -job, as Mr. Maxwell knows”--this also for the guest--“and I’ve simply -got to make good on it. I could have had that waiting motor-engine out -there pulling trains through the mountain this morning, but I made -up my mind that we wouldn’t turn a wheel until Mr. Maxwell had seen -everything for himself.” - -“That’s business,” said Sprague, encouragingly. “Old Davy Crockett’s -maxim, eh? ‘Be sure you’re right, and then go ahead.’ But let me tell -you, Mr. Stribling: Mr. Maxwell will look wise and say, ‘Yes, yes,’ but -he’ll have to take your word for it, after all. What we average people -don’t know about modern electrical installations would fill a--” he -looked around as if in search of a measure of capacity--“would fill a -tank as big as that one across the track--the one you’ve dipped your -wires into over there in that side cave.” - -“The oil-switch, you mean? Yes, that is a little safety wrinkle we’re -putting in wherever there’s a chance of an accident breaking down the -power wires. I’ll explain it as we come back.” - -When the young engineer led the way onward again a glance to the rear -would have shown him that only three of the four were at his heels. -Starbuck had seen his chance, and in a quick withdrawal he dodged into -the side cavern housing the oil-switch. Two of the empty dynamite boxes -enabled him to breast the top of the tall iron tank. What he saw was a -little puzzling. Oil-switch tanks are usually left open to the air, but -this one was fitted with a galvanized-iron cover made in the form of a -shallow pan with double sides spaced about six inches apart. The inner -compartment of the pan was half-filled with a transparent oily liquid, -and the outer annular space around it was closely packed with chopped -ice. Hastily breaking the seals of the package he had been carrying -under his coat, he dumped the contents into the central receptacle -and fled without waiting to prove Sprague’s assertion that nothing -alarming would happen. When he rejoined the inspection party Sprague -was still holding Stribling in talk, and the young mine owner made sure -it was done to cover his own momentary absence. - -The remainder of the trip through the tunnel was made without incident, -and on the way back Stribling halted the party at the safety switch -side cavern which, oddly enough, was charged with a curiously acrid -odor that made breathing in it chokingly difficult. Coughing and -gasping, Stribling explained the mechanism briefly. An electro-magnet, -energized by the power current itself, held the switch in contact. If -the current should be interrupted, as in the case of a breakage due to -a wreck, the switch would be thrown and all the tunnel wires rendered -instantly harmless. - -“And these boxes are what your machinery came in?” said Sprague, -pointing to a litter of small dust-covered packing-cases scattered -about the tank. - -“Oh, no; those are dynamite boxes,” was the hoarse reply. “They are -empty--at least, Mr. Benson says they are, and he ought to know, since -they are some of his leavings.” And then: “Suppose we move on. The -air is frightfully bad in here. The engineer must have stopped the -ventilating fans.” - -Sprague had picked up a rusty bolt left by the timber-framers. - -“You’ve got a good solid oil-tank here,” he said, hammering lustily on -the iron with the bolt. - -Starbuck was watching Stribling, and he would have sworn that the young -engineer’s jump took him two feet clear into the air. - -“Great Scott! Don’t do that, Mr. Sprague!” he cried. “You might break -some of the--some of the adjustments, you know!” - -Sprague’s mellow laugh echoed hollowly in the timbered cavern. - -“If they’re that delicate, perhaps we’d better take your suggestion and -move on,” he said. “I guess we’ve seen enough, anyway, eh, Maxwell?” - -The superintendent acquiesced and the tunnel-threading was resumed to -the portal, and beyond to the little shack where Stribling had his -office. Here the young man became the hospitable host. - -“Sit down, gentlemen, and I’ll call Canby at the power plant and ask -him if he is all ready to ‘cut in.’ If he says yes, you can take the -’phone and give the order, Mr. Maxwell. It’s your railroad.” - -The four disposed themselves as they pleased in the cramped little -office fronting the tunnel. Sprague took his stand at the single -window to stare absently at the black hole in the mountain side--an -unrelieved spot of gloom now that the incandescents had been turned -off. Starbuck chose a corner, and did not take his eyes from Stribling, -who was sitting at his desk with Maxwell opposite. - -With the receiver at his ear the young engineer exchanged a few words -with the company’s electrician at the power-house three miles away. -Then he pushed the ’phone across the desk to Maxwell. - -“Canby says he’s ready,” he announced, in a voice that was strangely -sharp and tremulous. “Give him the word, and then watch this volt-meter -on the wall behind me. It will tell you when the current comes on.” - -Maxwell hesitated for a single instant and looked across at Sprague. -But the expert’s back was turned and he was still staring fixedly at -the distant tunnel mouth. The superintendent took the receiver and -spoke crisply. - -“This is Maxwell: if you’re ready, turn on the power.” - -At the word, Sprague faced about quickly and fixed his gaze upon -Stribling. The young man had turned aside in his chair and his face was -ghastly. Benson and Maxwell were watching the indicator on the wall; -but Starbuck was rising noiselessly from his seat on the cot, with one -hand buried in the side-pocket of his coat. For ten dragging seconds -the index finger of the volt-meter remained motionless. Stribling was -twitching in his chair, and finally he burst out. - -“Those dynamite boxes! We ought to have taken them out! What if they -shouldn’t happen to be empty--all of them?” - -As he spoke, the index of the volt-meter began to jump like a thing -suddenly endowed with life, and Benson cried out, “There she comes!” -Stribling crouched in his chair as if shrinking from a blow and covered -his face with his hands. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, ticked themselves -off on the little desk clock at Maxwell’s elbow, and then Sprague’s -voice broke into the tense silence. - -“It’s all over, Stribling. You can sit up now and take your medicine. -The end of the world is still safely in the future.” - -The young man whirled in his chair and his right hand shot toward a -half-opened drawer of the desk. It was Starbuck who interposed. - -“Nixie,” he said sharply; “it isn’t time for you to pass out yet. Keep -your hands out of that drawer, or I’ll put these on,” jingling a pair -of handcuffs before the culprit’s staring eyes. - -Stribling leaped from his chair and took one long haggard look through -the open door at the tunnel mouth where nothing was happening. Then he -dropped back and became the trapped animal fighting for life. - -“What have you got on me?--or what is it you think you’ve got?” he -rasped. - -It was the man from Washington who replied. - -“Don’t make it harder for yourself than you have to,” he said gently. -“We’ve got it all. We know that you had that train stopped last night -so that you could unload those empty dynamite boxes--they are empty, -you know--without discovery. We also know that this morning you placed -a quantity of nitro-glycerine in that safety switch, and that you have -the wiring rigged to fire the stuff and destroy the tunnel.” - -The young man looked up and his smile showed his teeth. - -“But the current is on and the tunnel isn’t destroyed,” he interrupted. - -“No; you overdid it a little in asking Benson to help you handle the -nitro-glycerine and in letting him spill it on his clothes; also you -skipped a stitch when you thought that by smuggling those dynamite -boxes in and calling everybody’s attention to them, you’d put the -blame of the explosion upon Benson and the railroad people. You forgot -that all makers of dynamite nowadays stamp the date on the boxes. -The tunnel was completed two years ago; and the date on one of the -boxes, at least, is January of the present year. You are down and out, -Mr. Stribling, and there is only one way in which you can dodge the -stripes. That is by telling us who hired you to do this.” - -A silence, tense like the silence of the court-room when the judge -pronounces the sentence, fell upon the group gathered in the little -shack-office, and it lasted for a full minute. At the end of it -Stribling jerked his head up and spoke. - -“I’m a man again now, Mr. Sprague, if I haven’t been for the past -two months,” he said steadily. “I’ll tell you this: you can give me -the third degree, if you want to--there are enough of you here to do -it--and after that you can send me to the pen if you feel like it. But, -so help me God, you’ll never make me welsh on the man for whom I did -this: never, so long as I have the breath to say no!” - -Again the tense silence supervened, and Starbuck held up the handcuffs -tentatively. Sprague shook his head, and spoke again. - -“You’ve considered this resolution well, have you, Stribling?” - -“I have. I owe that man everything I’ve got in this world: education, -the chance to hold my head up with others and, more than that, he once -saved my father from going where you mean to send me--over the road. -I’ll admit all you have charged. I did set the trap, and I don’t know -yet why it hasn’t gone off. All I ask is that you’ll remember that I -picked a time when there wouldn’t be any lives lost.” - -“I discovered that last night,” said Sprague quietly; adding, with a -glance for the superintendent’s brother-in-law, “I guess we’ll have -to turn him over to you, Mr. Starbuck.” Then, turning once more upon -the culprit: “Why did you find it necessary to cross the power wires -with the telegraph lines early this afternoon, and so to destroy the -instruments on a hundred miles of railroad, Stribling?” - -The young engineer looked up hardily. “It was necessary. I took care to -have Canby and the railroad electricians all over at the power plant, -and I couldn’t take the chance of leaving them in communication with -head-quarters at Brewster.” - -Maxwell, who had sat as a silent listener, shook his head sadly and got -up and went out, followed by Benson. A little later Sprague, standing -at the window, saw them trying out the electric locomotive in short -runs up and down the tunnel approach. Starbuck came out of his corner -and snapped the manacles on Stribling’s wrists, and the young man made -no resistance. Sprague turned at the click of the handcuffs, standing -to frown down thoughtfully upon the self-confessed wrecker. - -“I was in hopes we were going to get the men higher up this time; get -them so they would stay got,” he said, half to himself. “But it seems -that a bit of common human gratitude is going to blunder around and get -in the way. Stribling, I’m honestly sorry for you. I’m afraid we made a -mistake in not letting you get hold of that gun a few minutes ago.” - -The young man with the honest eyes looked up quickly. “You did, indeed, -Mr. Sprague. It’s the simplest way out of it for me.” - -“You are still determined not to do the larger justice by giving us the -information we need?” - -The young man raised his manacled hands. - -“Think of it a minute,” he pleaded. “You wouldn’t do it yourself; you -know you wouldn’t.” - -“I don’t know--I don’t know; perhaps I shouldn’t,” admitted the big -man thoughtfully. Then he went on with visible reluctance: “I’m afraid -we shall have to pinch you, and pinch you hard, my boy. And it’s a -shame, when you were only a tool in the hands of the men who ought to -do time for this thing. I suppose we shall be taking the seven o’clock -passenger back to Brewster. Is there anything you’d like to do before -it comes along?” - -“Yes; I’d like to write a letter or two.” - -“You shall do it, and you shall have privacy.” And then to Starbuck: -“Fix him so that he can.” - -Starbuck unlocked the manacle from Stribling’s right wrist and locked -it again around the arm of the office chair. “Will that give you room -enough?” he asked. - -“More than enough,” was the quiet reply. And when Starbuck had taken -the pistol from the half-opened desk drawer the two who were free -went out and closed the door against any possible intrusion upon the -captive’s privacy. - -“I’ll stay round,” Starbuck volunteered, when they were outside. “You -go over and ride the engine with Mr. Maxwell, if you want to.” - -It was half an hour later when the three who had been trying out the -electric locomotive side-tracked the big machine at the sound of the -down passenger’s whistle signal at the western tunnel approach, and -crossed the tracks to where Starbuck was standing guard at the reopened -door of the office-shack. - -“Still writing?” asked Sprague of the silent guard. - -“No; for the last ten minutes he’s been sitting there with his head on -the table, just as you see him. He asked me to open the door a while -ago, so he could see better.” - -Moved by a common impulse they entered the office-room, stepping -softly. But the young man at the desk was far beyond all earthly -disturbances. One letter, addressed to a girl in New York, lay on the -desk, stamped and sealed. Hanging beside the chair, and ingeniously -strung and weighted so that they could touch nothing, were the -two heavily insulated power wires which he had somehow managed to -disconnect from the volt-meter switch-board at his back; these and a -freshly burned shrivel on the hand of the arm that was crooked for a -pillow told how it had been done. - -“Good God!” Maxwell exclaimed; “we might have thought of that! Poor -fellow! He couldn’t face it out, after all!” - -Starbuck gently released the handcuffs and slipped them into his -pocket. Then he helped Benson put the body of the man who could not -face it out upon the cot in the corner. The train was coming, and -Benson pushed the others toward the door. - -“Don’t stay here and miss your train,” he said. “I’ll do what there is -to be done. I was going to stay, anyway.” - - * * * * * - -The evening train was feeling its way down over the wireless line and -was half-way to Brewster before the three men sitting in the otherwise -unoccupied smoking-compartment of the sleeper broke the silence which -the sudden tragedy had laid upon them. But at the lighting of his third -cigar Maxwell could contain himself no longer. - -“It’s another of your miracles, Calvin,” he said. “By this time I’m so -well used to them that nothing you do fazes me any more. But I’m sure -Billy will sleep better to-night if you tell him how you did it.” - -The big man grunted softly. - -“I think both of you have put the broken bits of the puzzle together -before this,” he returned. “The motive was the chief thing; what I -call the ‘nucleus thought,’ and we had that all ready-made. We knew -that this ‘Big Nine,’ as Ford names it, was out after your scalp; and -as soon as you told me about the tunnel and the Grafton Brothers’ -contract the probable point of attack was no longer in doubt. You see, -I happen to know that the Graftons have always been hand-in-glove with -your principal competitor--had installed all the block signals for it, -cutting a fine melon for themselves in the process, too.” - -“Still,” said Maxwell, “it’s a long way from that to this.” - -“It was only taking one step after another, and Benson gave me three or -four of them. The details of Stribling’s exceedingly simple plot became -very plain after Benson had told us about the train-stopping, the empty -dynamite boxes, the safety switch--which could have been just as easily -and effectively placed at either end of the tunnel as in that hole in -the middle of it--and finally about the pouring of the sirupy stuff -into the oil-tank. There was a bit of fine work on Stribling’s part. -Benson doubtless knows nitro-glycerine when he sees it; but under the -circumstances he would be completely disarmed--as he was.” - -“But how did you know that there would be a false cover on the tank?” -queried Starbuck. - -“A bit of pure reasoning. The specific gravity of glycerine is greater -than that of the heaviest of the earth oils; hence the explosive would -sink to the bottom of the tank and mix with the oil to some extent. I -reasoned that Stribling would not take the risk of the mixture.” - -“He didn’t,” said the mine owner; “the pan was there and it was packed -in ice.” - -“But the laboratory experiment?” put in Maxwell. - -“Was a simple test for nitro-glycerine, of course. You saw it blow -up the test-tube, but even then only one of you,--Mr. Starbuck -here,--suspected the truth. You did, didn’t you, Mr. Starbuck?” - -“I had a guess comin’,” said the young mine owner quietly; adding: -“That was why I took the trouble to hunt me up a pair of handcuffs when -I went to get the train-orders.” - -“But if there was nitro-glycerine in that tank, why didn’t it go off -when the current was turned on?” queried Maxwell. - -“For the very simple reason that Mr. Starbuck, at my direction, dumped -a large dose of neutralizing chemical into it as we passed the tank on -our way through the tunnel, and so saponified it. That was why I had -the courage to hammer on the tank with my bolt, and why Stribling, not -dreaming that his touchy explosive’s teeth had been drawn, nearly had a -fit.” - -“One other thing,” Maxwell put in. “You asked Stribling why he burned -the telegraph wires out; how did you know they had been burned out?” - -Sprague chuckled good-naturedly. - -“I knew that at Little Butte; you might have known it if you hadn’t -been so excited as to forget that you had a nose. That office, as well -as the next one,--I’ve forgotten its name,--fairly reeked with the -smell of burnt rubber and insulation, and I said to myself that there -were only two torches in these mountains that could heat things hot -enough to burn the instruments: namely, lightning and the high-voltage -current from your plant in Lopez Canyon.” - -Again a silence, broken only by the train clamor, settled down upon the -three in the Pullman smoking-room. After a time Maxwell drew a long -breath and said: - -“It was a narrow squeak; a horribly narrow squeak, Calvin. We have a -good deal to say nowadays about the lawlessness of the mob and the -individual; but big money doesn’t seem to know that there are any such -things as justice and equity and a square deal.” - -Sprague sat up and methodically relighted his cigar. - -“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he demurred. “You can’t say that all -big money is lawless. Of course, there are buccaneers in every chapter -of the world’s history, and we have ours, neatly labelled with the -dollar-mark instead of the skull and cross-bones. Good big money is an -undoubted blessing; it is only bad big money that is a curse.” - -Maxwell’s smile was mirthless. - -“When a man puts a gun in your face and holds you up, it isn’t very -consoling to remember that there are a good many other men in the world -who wouldn’t treat you that way,” he commented. And then: “I hope we’ve -seen the last of this fight in the dark with that stock-jobbing gang in -New York.” - -“You haven’t,” Sprague declared definitely. “They’ll come back at you, -and keep on coming back, until you get a fair grand-jury underhold -on the men at the top. I counted confidently upon being able to give -you that underhold to-day. I thought we had Stribling where he would -be obliged to turn state’s evidence. It was our misfortune that he -happened to be too good a man; that he was only the tool of a villain -and not a villain himself. They’ll hit you again, Maxwell, and go on -hitting you until you can strike back hard enough to put some of the -men higher up in the prisoner’s dock.” - -This might have stood for the final word; but the true finality was -reached a couple of hours later when the superintendent and the -Government expert were smoking their bedtime pipes in the Topaz lobby. - -“We haven’t fully grasped the real pity of this thing yet, Dick,” -said Sprague, at the end of the ends. “It is this: that greed, the -infernal lust of money that has laid hold upon our day and generation, -can take so fine a thing as that poor boy’s gratitude, transform it -into criminality, and make him pay the price with his life. Isn’t that -enough to make your blood run cold? Let’s turn in and forget it if we -can. Good-night. I’m going to bed.” - - - - -IV - -The Mystery of the Black Blight - - -THE wreck at Lobo Cut, half-way between Angels and the upper portal -of Timanyoni Canyon, was a pretty bad one. Train Six, known in -the advertising folders as “The Fast Mail,” had collided in the -early-morning darkness with the first section of a westbound freight -which, though it was an hour and fifty minutes off its schedule time, -had run past Angels without heeding the “stop for orders” signal -plainly displayed. - -Ten minutes after the crash, the second section of the freight had -shot around the hill curve to hurl itself, a six-thousand-ton, -steel-pointed projectile, into the rear end of the first section, and -the disaster was complete. Somewhere under the smoking mountain of -wreckage marking the spot where the Mail and first-section locomotives -had locked themselves together, reared, and fallen over into the ditch, -two firemen and an engineer were buried. Out of one of the crushed -mail-cars two postal clerks were taken; one of them to die a few -minutes after his rescue, and the other bruised and broken, with an -arm and a leg dangling, as he was carried out to safety. - -At the other point of impact there had been no loss of life, though the -material damage was almost as great. The engine of the second section -had split its way sheer through the first-section caboose--which, in -the nature of things, had no one in it to be killed--and through two -of the three merchandise-cars next in its plunging path. With a mixed -chaos of groceries, farming implements, and splintered timbers for its -monument, the big mogul had burrowed into the soft side bank of the -cutting as if in some blind attempt to bury itself out of sight of the -havoc it had wrought. - -On the Thursday morning of this, the worst of a series of accidents -thickly bestudding that fateful month of August, Maxwell, the general -superintendent, chanced to be two hundred miles away to the eastward. -His service-car was in the Copah yards, and he was asleep in it when -the night watchman came down from the despatcher’s office to rouse him -with the bad news. - -What could be done at such long range was done instantly and with -good generalship. The wires were working with Brewster, the division -head-quarters in Timanyoni Park. With his own hand Maxwell sent the -orders to Connolly, the despatcher, to Fordyce, the trainmaster, -and to Bascom, the master mechanic. A relief train was to be made -up with all haste to take the doctors to the wreck, and to convey -the passengers of Number Six back to Brewster. Following the relief -train, but giving it precedence, should go the wrecking-train. The -superintendent even went so far as to specify the equipment which -should be taken: the heavier of the two wrecking-cranes, a car-load -of rails for temporary tracking, and two or three water-cars for the -extinguishing of the fire. - -These things done, and the arrangements made to start his own special -immediately for the scene of disaster, the superintendent had the -fine courage, in the face of this last and most unnerving of many -disheartenments, to return to his car and to go back to bed. He had -been up very late in conference with his president, Ford, and he knew -that the demands awaiting him at the end of the five-hour run to Lobo -Cut would call for all the reserves of strength and energy he could -hope to store up during the distance-covering interval. - -Much good work had already been accomplished when Maxwell’s special, -feeling its way past the four long freights and the midnight passenger, -all held up at Angels, came upon the scene of destruction among the -foot-hills at an early hour in the forenoon. The relief train had -come and gone, bearing away the unhurt, the injured, and the dead. A -temporary working-track had been laid through the cut, and the mighty -one-hundred-and-fifty-ton steam crane, its movements directed by a big, -rather flashily dressed man with an accurately creased brown hat pulled -down over his brows, was reaching its steel finger here and there in -the débris and plucking the derelict freight-cars out of the way. - -Up at the other end Fordyce, the trainmaster, was working with another -crew, using a mammoth block-and-tackle, with a detached locomotive for -its pulling power. When Maxwell came on the ground, Fordyce, a gnarled -little man with a twist in his jaw and a temper like the sparks from -an emery wheel, was alternately cajoling and cursing his men in a -praiseworthy attempt to make his block-and-tackle outheave the master -mechanic’s powerful crane. - -“Yank ’em--yank ’em, men! Get that rail under there and heave! Wig -it--_wig it_! Now get that grab-hook in here--lively! Don’t let -them fellows at the other end snake two to our ONE!” - -Maxwell stopped to exchange a word or two with the sweating -trainmaster and then passed on down the wreck-strewn line. At the -master mechanic’s end of things he came upon Benson, chief of -construction, who had accompanied the wrecking-train from Brewster only -because he had happened to be on the way to Angels and saw no other -probable means of reaching his destination. - -“Pretty bad medicine--the worst of the lot,” commented the young chief -of construction, when, tramping soberly, they came to the place where -the two great locomotives, locked in their death grapple, were nuzzling -the clay bank of the cutting. - -Maxwell’s teeth came together with a savage little click. - -“A few weeks ago, Jack, we were scared stiff for fear the ‘Big Nine’ -crowd of stock-jobbers would succeed in doing something to put us on -the panic-slide. Now we are doing it ourselves, just about as fast as -we can. Is it true that there were four killed?” - -“Yes; both firemen, and Bamberg, the engineer of the freight. The other -man was a postal clerk; and his mate had an arm and a leg broken.” - -“Many injuries?” - -“Astonishingly few, when there was such a good chance for a general -massacre. Both men on the second section engine jumped, and both were -hurt, though not badly. There was nobody in the split caboose when -it was hit. On the Mail, Cargill, who was running, got off with a -pretty bad scalp wound. An express messenger had his foot jammed; and -the train baggageman had a lot of trunks shaken down on him. In the -coaches there were a few people thrown out of their seats and hurt by -the sudden stop; but in the sleepers there were a good many who slept -straight through it, incredible as that may sound.” - -“I know,” said Maxwell; “I’ve seen that happen more than once, when the -Pullmans stayed on the rails.” Then, with a slight backward nod of his -head he changed the subject abruptly. “Bascom--has he been handling it -all right?” - -“He’s a dandy!” said Benson. “Personally, I’d about as soon associate -with any one of a dozen Copah tin-horns that I could name as to -foregather with Mr. Judson Bascom. But he’s onto his job, all right. He -laid this temporary track himself; I haven’t butted in at all, either -here or at Fordyce’s end.” - -“How did you happen to get here? I thought you were up Red Butte way,” -said the superintendent. - -“I was; but I came down to Brewster on Six last night, meaning to go -through to Angels. While we were changing engines I ran upstairs to -get some maps and papers out of my office, and took too long about it; -the train got away from me and I chased out with the wreck-wagons. -That’s how near I came to being mixed up in this thing myself.” - -“And you want to go on to Angels now?” - -“Yes; when I get a chance. Those irrigation people in Mesquite Valley -are howling to have an unloading spur built up from the old copper-mine -track, and I thought I’d go and look the ground over.” - -The superintendent’s frown was expressive of impatient dissatisfaction. - -“That Mesquite project is another of the grafts that are continually -giving this country a black eye, Jack. It’s ‘bunk,’ pure and simple. -Everybody who has ever been in the Mesquite knows that you couldn’t -raise little white beans in that disintegrated sandstone!” - -“It’ll do for an excuse to rake in a few hundred thousand Eastern -shekels,” Benson remarked. “There will be plenty of ‘come-ons’ to buy -the land when the dam is built.” - -Bascom’s great crane was poising a crushed and mangled box-car in air, -and when the crooking steel finger swung its burden aside and dropped -it with a crash out of the way, Maxwell turned upon his heel. - -“I have my car here, and I’m going back to Angels to do some wiring,” -he said. “Come along, if you want to see those irrigation people. But -I’ll tell you right now, I won’t approve any recommendation for more -track-laying for them.” - -They had walked possibly half the length of the long blockade when a -noisy automobile, dust-covered and filled with men, drew up on the mesa -flat above the wreck. Benson looked up with a scowl. - -“There’s another gang of those newspaper ghouls!” he commented, as two -of the three men in the tonneau got out and began to unlimber their -cameras and tripods. “It’s no picnic to drive a car from Brewster over -the range, to say nothing of the danger; and this is the second squad -since daylight. There have been enough pictures taken of this wreck to -fill all the newspapers between New York and San Francisco for a week!” - -Maxwell’s smile was a mere teeth-baring. - -“Yes; we’re getting the advertising all right,” he said. “We’ve been -getting it for a month or more.” Then, as they tramped on out of the -wreck raffle and headed for the waiting office-car: “I had a talk with -Ford last night; that is what took me to Copah. We’re in bad, Benson. -Ford says they’ve taken to calling us ‘the sick railroad’ on the Stock -Exchange, and our securities are simply going to the puppies. Another -month like this one we’ve just stumbled through will either wipe us -from the map or clean us up definitely and put us into the hands of a -receiver.” - -“Does Ford say that?” gasped the young chief engineer. - -“He said a good bit more than that. He still insists that these -troubles of ours are helped along from the outside; that they are in -reality just so many moves in the game that a certain Wall Street -pool is playing to get control of our road. I tried to show him how -impossible it was; how the entire slump in discipline which causes all -the trouble is merely one of those crazy epidemics that now and then -sweep over the length of the best-managed railroads on earth.” - -“And he wouldn’t believe it?” queried Benson. - -“No; the last thing he said to me as his train was pulling out proved -that he didn’t. He intimated that there wasn’t any ‘act-of-God’ verdict -to be brought in, in our case, and told me to go back to Brewster and -dig until I found the real cause.” - -By this time they had reached the service-car special, and Maxwell -passed the word to his engineer to back up the line to Angels. When -the wreck and the wreckers had vanished beyond the hill curves, Benson -filled his short pipe and at the lighting of it asked another question. - -“I’ve been wondering if we couldn’t get a little expert help on -this thing, Maxwell. Have you tried to interest Mr. Sprague in this -discipline business?” - -The superintendent shook his head. - -“Sprague isn’t going around doing odd jobs in psychology for anybody -and everybody,” he deprecated. “He is a Government chemist, and he is -out here on the Government’s business. Besides, it isn’t a case for -a detective; even for the best amateur detective in the bunch--which -is easily what Sprague might claim to be, you’d say. You see, there -isn’t anything special to detect. What we need is a doctor; not a -plain-clothes man.” - -Benson’s left eye closed itself slowly in qualified dissent. - -“What does Mr. Sprague himself have to say about it?” he queried. - -“He hasn’t said anything. In fact, I haven’t seen him for over two -weeks. He’s been out with Billy Starbuck, gathering soil specimens; -they are still out somewhere, I don’t know just where.” - -Neither of the two men riding the rear platform of the backing -service-car spoke again until the car stopped with a jerk at the -edge-of-the-desert station with the celestial name, which had once been -the head-quarters of the original Red Butte Western Railroad. Then -Benson summed up the situation in a couple of terse sentences. - -“If we don’t do something, and do it quick, there is a bunch of us -so-called railroad bosses on this high line who may as well pack our -duffle-bags and fade away into the landscape. Three wrecks within a -week; and this last one will cost a hundred thousand cold iron dollars -before we’re through with the lawyers; I’ll be hanged if I wouldn’t -call in the doctor--some doctor--any doctor, Maxwell. That’s my ante. -So long; see you a little later about this Mesquite business, if you’re -still here.” And he put a leg over the platform railing and went away. - -Three minutes later, when the superintendent had crossed the station -platform and was on his way around to the door opening into the -operator’s office, two men mounted upon wiry range horses rode down -the single remaining street of the dead-alive former railroad town, -pointing for the station. - -One of them, a good-looking youngish man with a preternaturally grave -face and the shrewd thoughtful eyes that tell of days and nights spent -afield and alone with the desert immensities, was the superintendent’s -brother-in-law by courtesy. The other, a gigantic athlete of a man, -whose weight fairly bowed the back of the stout horse he rode, was Mr. -Calvin Sprague. - -Maxwell paused when he saw and recognized the two horsemen. But when -they came up, the weight of the recent disaster made his greeting a -rather dismal attempt at friendly jocularity. - -“Well, well!” he said, gripping hands with the athlete; “Billy -certainly had it in for you this time! Rode you over the range, did he? -I’ll bet you’ll never have the nerve to look a horse in the face again, -after this. Where on top of earth have you two been keeping yourselves -for the last fortnight?” - -“Oh, just sashayin’ round on the edges,” drawled Starbuck, replying for -both; “gettin’ acquainted with the luminous landscape, and chewin’ off -chunks of the scenery, and layin’ awake nights to soak up some of the -good old ozone.” - -“Ozone!” chuckled the big man; “I’m jammed gullet-full of it, Dick, and -I have a hunch that it’s going to settle somewhere below the waist line -and make me bow-legged for life. King David said that a horse is a vain -thing for safety, but I can go him one better and say that it’s the -vainest possible thing for just plain, ordinary, every-day comfort. I’m -a living parenthesis-mark--or a pair of ’em, if you like that better.” -Then without warning and almost without a break: “Where is the wreck, -this time?” - -Maxwell’s frown was a little brow-wrinkling of curious perplexity. - -“You’ve just ridden down from the hills, haven’t you? How do you know -there is a wreck?” - -“That’s too easy,” laughed the expert, waving a Samsonic arm toward -the five side-tracked trains held up in the Angels yard. “If you -didn’t have your track cluttered up somewhere, those trains wouldn’t -be hanging up here, I’m sure. Is it a bad one?--but you needn’t answer -that; I can see at least one dead man in your eyes.” - -“There are four of them,” said the superintendent soberly, “and some -others desperately hurt. We’re in a bad way, Sprague. This is the third -smash within a week.” - -Sprague dismounted stiffly and secured his saddle-bags containing the -soil specimens gathered at the price of so much discomfort. - -“Starbuck,” he said whimsically, “I’m willing to pay the price of -a hundred-dollar guinea-pig, if necessary, to have this razor-back -mustang shipped home in a palace stock-car to his stable in Brewster. -Mr. Maxwell’s office-car is good enough for me from this on.” - -Starbuck smiled grimly and took the abandoned horse in charge. “I’ll -take care of the bronc’,” he agreed; and the big man limped around the -station to board the service-car while Maxwell went into the office to -do his telegraphing. - -When the superintendent returned half an hour later he found his -self-invited guest lounging luxuriously in the easiest of the big -wicker chairs in the open compartment of the car, smoking the fattest -of black cigars and reading a two-days-old Denver paper. - -“This is something like,” he said. “I was never cut out for a pioneer, -Richard; Starbuck has proved that to my entire satisfaction in these -last two weeks. But that’s enough of me and my knockings. Sit down and -tell me your troubles. I see the papers are making space-fillers out -of your railroad to beat the band. Are you ready to come around to my -point of view yet?” - -Maxwell sat down like a man who was both worried and wearied. - -“The Lord knows, I wish I could come around to your point of view, -Calvin. If I could see any possibility of charging these things to -outside influences.... But there isn’t any. The trouble is purely -local and internal--and as unaccountable as the breaking out of an -epidemic when the strictest kind of quarantine has been maintained.” - -Sprague smiled incredulously. - -“There never was a case of typhoid yet without its germ to account for -it, Dick,” he asserted dogmatically. - -“I know; but that theory doesn’t hold good in the psychological field. -We’ve got a good set of men, Sprague. To a degree which you don’t often -find in modern railroad consolidations, we’ve had that precious thing -called _esprit de corps_. We’ve never had any labor troubles since -Lidgerwood’s time, and there are no grievances in the air to account -for the present let-down. Yet the let-down is with us. Almost every day -some man who has hitherto proved trustworthy falls down on his job, and -there you are.” - -“You’ve tried all the usual remedies, I suppose?” - -“I should say I had! I’ve stormed and cursed and pleaded and reasoned -until I’m worn out! If I fire a bunch of them, I have to hire a new -bunch, and inside of a week the new men have caught the disease for -themselves. One bad wreck will make a hundred trainmen uncertain -and jumpy, and a second one will turn half of the hundred into -irresponsible lunatics. You’d have to mix and mingle with the force -as I do to understand the condition things have gotten into. It’s -horrible, Calvin. It is like the black blight that you have seen spread -through a well-kept orchard.” - -“There is a cause,” said the expert, settling himself solidly in his -chair. “I tell you, Dick, there’s a germ in the air, and that second -mentality of mine that you are so fond of poking fun at tells me that -in the case of your railroad orchard the germ has been deliberately -planted. You say it’s impossible: I’ve a good notion to let the -soil-testing rest for a few minutes and show you.” - -“If I thought there was the least chance in the world that you could -show me----” - -“Is that a challenge? By Jove! I’ll take you. When can you get me back -to Brewster?” - -“As soon as the track is cleared. We ought to be able to get through by -noon.” - -The expert got up, shook the riding kinks out of his legs, and threw -the newspaper aside. - -“I’m going out to walk around for a bit, and after a while I’ll ask you -to take me down to this wreck,” he said; and Maxwell, who had a deskful -of work awaiting him, nodded. - -“Say, in an hour?” - -“An hour will do; I’ll show up within that time.” - -Later, the superintendent, wading through the files of business -correspondence which always accompanied him in his goings to and fro on -the line, had window glimpses of Sprague strolling up and down beside -the waiting trains in the yard or standing to chat with some member of -the loafing crews. - -The glimpses were provocative of good-natured incredulity on the part -of the desk-worker. Thrice during the summer of warfare Sprague had -been able to step into the breach, each time with signal success. But -in each of the three former instances there had been tangible causes -with which to grapple; flesh-and-blood criminals to be ferreted out -and apprehended. Maxwell, glancing out of the window again, shook his -head despondently. What could the keenest intelligence avail in the -case of an entire railroad suffering from an acute attack of nervous -disintegration and recklessness? Nothing, the superintendent decided; -there was nothing for it but to settle down upon a grim determination -to outlive and worry through the period of disaster; and he was still -grinding away at his desk with that thought in the back part of his -mind when Sprague came in and announced his willingness to be taken on -to the wreck. - -Maxwell gave the necessary order, and in due time the one-car special -had repassed the few miles intervening between Angels and Lobo Cut, to -come to a stand on the curve of hazard. Sprague was lighting a fresh -cigar preparatory to a plunge into the track-clearing activities, and -Maxwell looked up from his work. - -“Want me to get off with you?” he asked. - -“No; it’s the very thing I don’t want,” declared the expert briefly; -and therewith he went out to drop from the car-step and to take the -plunge alone. - -In the two hours which had elapsed since the departure of the -superintendent’s car the track-clearers at both ends of the wreck had -made astonishingly good progress. Step by step the master mechanic -had worked his big crane up the line, tossing the derelicts aside or -righting them upon the rails, as their condition warranted; and farther -along Fordyce, with his huge tackle and its pulling locomotive, had -been equally enthusiastic. - -It was Sprague’s boast that his methods of investigation, in the field -of his hobby, as in all others, were purely scientific; and he insisted -that the true scientist and the most successful is the one who can best -qualify as a shrewd and wholly impartial observer. - -Where another man might have asked questions, he stood aside and looked -on and listened. In the fierce toil of track-clearing no one seemed to -pay any attention to him, and the picture which presented itself was a -life-sketch of the railroad force _in petto_ and in the raw. The -big onlooker took his time and made his mental jottings thoughtfully, -strolling from one group to another and lingering longest near the -hot boiler-cab of the great crane where a wizened human automaton in -dirty overalls and jumper jerked the levers and spun the wheels of the -hoist in obedience to the signals given by the flashily dressed master -mechanic. - -It wanted less than a quarter of an hour of noon when the final -obstruction was heaved aside, and the track gang, which had been -following the wreckers, trued and spiked the distorted rails of the -main line into place. Sprague closed his mental note-book and went back -to join Maxwell. - -In the office-car the porter-cook had laid the table for the mid-day -meal; and the superintendent and his guest ate it in transit, the -office-car special being the first of the halted trains to pass -westward over the newly cleared line. - -“Well?” said Maxwell interrogatively, when the meal had progressed to -the meat and vegetables without comment on the part of the one who had -lifted the challenge. - -“You’ve got the disease, all right; it’s with you, and in the epidemic -form, too. Its expression came out emphatically every now and then in -that track-clearing hustle. One little snappy, snarly fellow lying -under a box-car to make the hoisting-hitch voiced it precisely when his -mate yelled at him to come out, that the hitch might slip. He yapped -back, ‘Who the hell and blinkety-blank blankation cares!’ That’s one -form your disease is taking, and you’d say it would account for a good -many of the smashes.” - -“Well?” queried the superintendent again. “You didn’t stop at that?” - -“No; I made a few other preliminary observations which may or may not -prove up. Give me a little time; and when we get back to Brewster, -detail that ex-cowboy ‘relief operator’ of yours, Tarbell, to run -errands for me. If I can’t show you good, tangible results within -the next forty-eight hours or so, you may discharge me and hire a -Pinkerton.” - -“You’ll fail,” said Maxwell gloomily. “I’ve been through a sickness of -this kind before. There’s no cure for it. It has simply got to run its -course and wear itself out.” - -“That’s what they used to say about cholera and the plague and -yellow-fever, and all those things,” laughed the man from Washington; -but he did not go any farther into the matter of theories. - -The run of the special train to Brewster was made without incident, and -from the station Sprague went directly across to his hotel. - -“I’m going over to clean up,” he announced. “By and by, when you get -around to it, send Tarbell over and tell him to wait in the lobby for -me.” - -It was possibly an hour later when the young man who resembled William -Starbuck sufficiently to pass for the mine owner’s younger brother, got -out of his chair in the quietest corner of the Hotel Topaz lobby and -crossed to the elevators to meet the Government chemist. - -“How are you, Archer?” was the renovated soil-gatherer’s greeting. And -then, as he led the way back to the quiet corner from which the young -man had been keeping his watch upon the elevators: “We’re up against it -good and hard, this time, young man. Your boss has stumped us to prove -a thing which he says can’t be proved. Sit down and let’s see if we -can’t start the thin edge of a wedge. I’ll do the hammering and let you -hold the wedge, and you can squeal if I strike off and hit you. How -long has this case of bad railroading, which is smashing things right -and left, been going on?” - -The young fellow who was on the railroad pay-rolls as a “relief -operator” took time to consider. - -“A month or better.” - -“How did it begin?” - -“I don’t know. One way ’r another, the boys’ve just seemed to be -gettin’ sort o’ careless and losin’ their grip. After two or three -wrecks had happened, it was all off. Half o’ the men’ve taken to -runnin’ on their nerve, and the other half act like they don’t care a -durn.” - -“Is it only in the train service?” - -“Lord, no; it’s mighty near everywhere. It’s sort of a dry rot; cars go -without repairin’, engines burn out, and twice within the last week the -roundhouse has caught fire. You’d think every man on the road had just -turned loose all holts and didn’t give a cuss whether he ever got ’em -again or not.” - -“What do the men themselves say about it?” - -“There’s a heap o’ kickin’ and knockin’. Some say it’s Mr. Maxwell. -When he gets good and mad and fires a bunch of ’em, they raise a rookus -about it; and when he lets the next bunch down easy, they kick the -other way.” - -Sprague sat back in the big leather-upholstered lobby chair and for a -time seemed to be absorbed in a study of the rather over-massive beam -arrangement of the ceiling. Suddenly he turned to ask: “How much of a -prohibition country is this, Archer?” - -Tarbell laughed. - -“I reckon you don’t need to ask that, with three saloons in every block -in Brewster. We haven’t got the water-wagon bug much out here. They say -it don’t breed well this side o’ the main range.” - -“Much drinking among the railroad men?” - -“Well--m--m--not so you could notice it. There’s a rule against it.” - -“While they’re on duty, you mean?” - -“Any old time.” - -“Is that rule enforced?” - -“Mr. Maxwell allows it is. He’s sure some Ranahan when it comes to -buckin’ the booze-fighters.” - -“Still, there is more or less drinking among the men; you know there -is, don’t you, Archer?” - -The young man grinned soberly. - -“I ain’t tellin’ no tales out o’ school, Mr. Sprague, not me,” he -drawled. - -“Get rid of that notion,” said the big man sharply. “You are working -for Mr. Maxwell and his rules are your law and gospel. I’ll tell you -what I’ve seen, and then you can tell me what you’ve seen. I counted -sixteen men in one place on this railroad to-day who, within the -half-hour that I was looking on, stopped work either to hit or to pass -a pocket-flask. Now go on.” - -“If you hold me up that-away, I reckon maybe there _is_ a good -many empty bottles layin’ round on the right-o’-way--more’n what the -passengers throw out o’ the car windows,” was the reluctant admission. - -“And more than there used to be, say, two or three months ago?” - -“Yes; right smart more.” - -“I thought so. We don’t need to look any further, Archer, for the -disease itself. Your ‘dry rot’ is very pointedly a wet rot. Booze and -the running of a railroad are two things that won’t mix. Now we’ll come -to the nib of it. Why is there more drinking now than there used to be?” - -The younger man took time to think about it before he said: “You got me -goin’; I don’t know the answer to that.” - -“I didn’t suppose you did,” was the curt rejoinder. “But you are -going to learn the answer, Archer, my son. It is now four o’clock; by -half-past seven this evening I want you to be back here prepared to -tell me who has been letting down the fences for the railroad men in -this matter of drinking.” - -“Holy Smoke!” exclaimed the ex-cowboy, jarred for once out of his -plainsman calm, “how am I goin’ to do that, Mr. Sprague?” - -“That is for you to find out, my boy. If you don’t use your brain -you’ll never know whether or no you’ve got any. That’s all--until -half-past seven. You’ll find me here at the hotel.” - -It was an even hour before the time appointed for Tarbell’s return when -Maxwell joined the chemistry expert at the table in the Topaz café -where they usually sat when they could dine together. - -At the unfolding of the napkins Sprague said: “I’ve found your germ, -Dick, and things are beginning to develop. What do you think of -that?”--passing a bit of dingy coarse-fibred paper across the table. - -Maxwell opened the paper and read the ill-spelled type-written note it -bore. - - “MR. SPRAIG: - - “Weer onto you with both feet. keep youre fingers out ov the geers or - maybe youll git em mashed. - - “A WELL-WISHUR.” - -“Where did that come from?” asked the superintendent, plainly amused. - -“It was pushed under the door of my room upstairs about half an hour -ago. The man who left it was short, thick-set, smooth-shaven, and he -wore a pepper-and-salt suit and a slouch hat. Also, his breath smelled -of whiskey.” - -“You expect me to recognize the description?” - -“I didn’t know but you might.” - -“I don’t,” Maxwell denied. Then his smile of amusement changed to one -of amazement. “How could you know all these things about this man if -you were on the other side of a closed door, Calvin?” - -Sprague laughed. “See how easy it is to jump to conclusions,” he -derided. “I wasn’t on the other side of a closed door; I was in the -corridor when the fellow passed me, looking for the number on the door. -I saw him leave the note. I’ll ask one question, and then we’ll dismiss -that phase of the case. Is the wrecking-train back from Lobo yet?” - -“Yes; it came in about four o’clock with the string of crippled cars. -But you say you have found the germ; does that mean that you are going -to prove up on your assertion about the epidemic?” - -“I can’t tell what it means yet; but I can tell you the name of the -germ. It’s whiskey.” - -“Drinking among the men?” - -“Worse than that; drunkenness among the men. Enough of it, I should -say, to account for all of your troubles and then some.” - -“Oh, you’re off--’way off!” objected the harassed one irritably. “I -know there is some drinking; in a wide-open country like this it is -almost impossible to stamp it out entirely. But to account for the -epidemic in that way, you’d have to imagine every other man in the -service carrying a pocket-pistol on the job!” - -“And you think that couldn’t happen without your knowing it, eh? A -little farther along I may have some statistics to show you; but just -now I’m looking not so much for the germ as for the germ-carrier.” - -Maxwell smiled wearily. - -“Still sticking to the theory that the blight is imported, are you? -It’s the only time I’ve ever known you to be ‘yellow,’ Calvin. I can -imagine some wild-eyed newspaper reporter hatching such an idea, but -not you. Think of the absurdity of a bunch of Wall Street stock-jobbers -trying to get at us in any such indirect way as that--shipping whiskey -in here to demoralize our working force! Pshaw! When these fellows get -busy and go to work, they want action--quick action.” - -The expert put down his knife and fork and sat back in his chair. - -“You are so close to the thing that you are continually losing -the perspective, Dick,” he said earnestly. “You are going on the -supposition that those New York looters are trying first one thing and -then another. That doesn’t follow at all. For all you know, they may be -gunning for you in half a dozen different ways this blessed minute--as -they probably are. Assume, for the sake of the argument, that this -whiskey scheme could be worked; I know you say it can’t, but suppose it -could: can you conceive of any expedient that would be more certain to -kill your traffic, wipe out your earnings, smash your securities, and -put you on the toboggan slide generally?” - -“Oh, no; if it could be worked.” Maxwell’s answer this time was less -confidently derisive. - -“All right; now that you’ve come that far, I’ll say this: it can be -worked, and I’m here to tell you that it has been worked. Your railroad -is practically an inebriate asylum in the making, right now, Richard. -Half of your force has already fallen off the water chariot, and the -other half is scared to death at the thought of what the drunken half -may do.” - -Maxwell pushed away his dessert untasted. - -“You have the proof of this, Calvin?” he broke out. - -“I have some proof, and Tarbell is getting more. You’ve been blind. You -didn’t want to admit that your house of discipline was tumbling about -your ears, and you’ve been shutting your eyes to the plain facts. For -example: you may or may not be the only man in the service who doesn’t -know that those two freight engineers--the one who was killed and the -other--who overran their orders and smashed into the passenger at Lobo -Cut this morning were just plain drunk!” - -“What’s that? It--it can’t be, Calvin!” - -“But it _is_,” insisted the big man across the table. “It is -common talk among your own men; so common that it reached out and hit -me--an outsider.” - -The superintendent drank his small coffee at a single gulp and flung -his napkin aside. - -“I’ll get ’em!” he gritted savagely. “I’ll get the last damned -booze-fighter in the bunch!” And then: “Good God, Sprague; how could -anything like this go on without my knowing it?” - -“You would have found it out, sooner or later, of course. But you’re a -railroad man yourself, and you ought to know railroad men well enough -to take into consideration that sort of loyalty among them which keeps -them from ‘peaching’ on one another. Even Tarbell had to be jarred -before he would admit that he knew about it. I can imagine that there -has been a sort of generous conspiracy among the men to keep you from -finding out.” - -“That’s all right; I know now, and I’ll sift them out; I’ll go through -the whole blamed outfit with a club! I’ll----” - -The man who had called out this upbubbling of righteous wrath was -chuckling softly. - -“You won’t do anything that you say you will,” he interrupted -good-naturedly. “You stumped me to take the case, and I’ve taken it; -which means that you’re under the doctor’s orders. When you have cooled -down a bit, you’ll see very clearly that the worst thing you could do -at this particular crisis would be to start a division-wide scrap with -the rank and file.” - -“But, good Lord, Sprague; I’ve got to do something, haven’t I?” - -“You surely have; and that something is to help me find the -germ-carrier. Somebody has been taking down the bars for your men; who -is it?” - -“I don’t know any more than a goat. I can’t yet believe that it is the -work of any one man.” - -“Possibly it isn’t; there may be a good many. But I’ll chance a guess -that some one in authority is setting the pace. Leave that for a moment -and we’ll take up something else. You have two daily papers here -in Brewster: I’ve noticed that one of them, _The Tribune_, is -friendly to your road. How about the other, _The Times-Record_?” - -“It is supposed to be independent, with a slant against corporations -and ‘the system,’ whatever that may be.” - -“Um,” said the scientist. “Before I went out on this last trip with -Billy, I remarked that this other paper was giving a good bit of space -to your road troubles in its news columns, and a good bit of its -editorial space to criticisms of the Ford management. It occurred to me -then that there might be a reason. How is the paper organized?” - -“It is owned by one of our near-millionaires; a retired ranchman -named Parker Higginson, who has dabbled in real-estate, in mines, -and latterly in politics. His grouch against the railroad is purely -personal. He has asked favors that I couldn’t legally grant; and on one -occasion he took offence because I told him that a newspaper man should -be the last person in the world to invite us to become law-breakers.” - -“And his editor?” queried the expert. - -“Is a bird of the same feather; a rather ‘yellow’ little fice named -Healy.” - -Sprague looked rather dubiously at the two cigars which the waiter was -tendering on a server. “No, I think not, George,” he said, waving the -cigars aside and feeling for his own pocket-case of stronger ones. -And then to Maxwell: “This is all very nourishing. It may help out -more than you suspect. Later in the evening I may ask you to call with -me at the office of _The Times-Record_--though we may not have -to go that far up the ladder to find what we are looking for. In the -meantime, Tarbell is waiting for us out yonder in the lobby. Suppose we -go and see what he wants.” - -They found the young man, who looked like a younger brother to -Starbuck, and who had made his record chasing cattle thieves in -Montana, methodically rolling a cigarette in the loggia alcove, and -Sprague began on him briskly. - -“Spit it out, Archer; what have you found?” - -“I didn’t make out to find what you sent me after,” was the -half-evasive reply. - -“All right; tell us what you did find.” - -The young man dropped his cigarette and looked up with a glint of -stubbornness in his stone-gray eyes. - -“If it’s just the same to you, Mr. Sprague, I’d a heap ruther not,” he -said. - -Sprague reached out and turned the lapel of Tarbell’s coat, exposing -the small silver star of a deputy sheriff. - -“You took an oath when you got that, Archer; and Mr. Maxwell pays you -for wearing it.” - -Tarbell threw up his head defiantly. “Deputy or no deputy, I ain’t -goin’ to name no names,” he began slowly. “But here’s what I found -out: I been in twenty-three saloons and dives since you told me to go -chase, and I counted thirty-one railroad men in ’em. Not all of ’em was -drinkin’ or gamblin’, but some of ’em was.” - -Sprague turned to Maxwell. - -“You see, I knew what I was talking about.” - -The superintendent was shaking his head. - -“As openly as that!” he exclaimed. “I must have been the blindest fool -in all this hill country!” - -Tarbell chipped in quickly. “It ain’t been that bad for very long. But -it’s just as Mr. Sprague says; it’s spreadin’ like murrain on a dry -range. I saw men in them places this evenin’ that I’d a swore never got -off the water-wagon. I ain’t namin’ no names.” - -“Mr. Maxwell isn’t asking you to give anybody away,” the expert -qualified. And then: “Had your supper?” - -Tarbell nodded. “I had a hand-out in one o’ the saloons.” - -“Good. Then I’ll give you another job. Look around town for a man -about Mr. Maxwell’s build, only about twenty pounds heavier. He is -between twenty-five and thirty years old, wears a slouch hat soft gray -in color, dresses in pepper-and-salt, is clean-shaven, red-faced, -blue-eyed, and walks with a little hitch to his left leg which isn’t -quite a limp. When you catch up with him, find out who he is and come -and tell me. I’ll be over at Mr. Maxwell’s office.” - -Tarbell vanished, rolling a fresh cigarette as he went, and Sprague -thrust his arm in Maxwell’s. - -“I’ll go over to your shop with you,” he said. “I know you’re anxious -to climb back into the working saddle. I’m not going to bore you; I -merely want to have a little talk with that irreproachable chief clerk -of yours, Harvey Calmaine.” - -A little later they climbed the stair to the office floor of the -railroad building together, and Maxwell went on down the corridor to -the despatcher’s room. When he came back to his own office a half-hour -later and found Sprague and young Calmaine figuring together at the -chief clerk’s desk in the outer room, he went on to his own inner -sanctum without disturbing them. - -It was perhaps another half-hour farther along when the expert, who -had been patiently going over a mass of statistics with the alert, -well-groomed young fellow who served as the superintendent’s right -hand, sat back in his chair and relighted the fat black cigar which had -been suffered to go out many times during the figuring process. - -“It seems that a good many things besides wrecks have been happening -in the past few weeks, Mr. Calmaine,” he suggested musingly. “In that -short interval you have had many changes in the force, especially in -the motive-power department. I don’t know whether you have remarked it, -but fully half of the men in the shops and roundhouses are new men. And -that is the department in which the sickness seems to be the worst. -Your maintenance costs have increased three hundred per cent. over the -same period last year.” - -“I know it,” admitted the chief clerk. “It is the more marked because -Dawson, our former master mechanic, made such phenomenally good -records.” - -“I remember Dawson,” said the big man, slipping easily from the -statistics into the humanities. “He was here the first time I came over -the road, early in the summer. Has he left the Short Line?” - -“He has been promoted. He is superintendent of motive-power on the east -end of the Southwestern.” - -“That is recent, isn’t it?” - -“Yes; it was only a few weeks ago.” - -“And you have a new man as department chief?” - -“We have--Judson Bascom. You may remember him as the man who ran the -special train for you and Mr. Maxwell the day you made the blind trip -to Tunnel Number Three. He is a sort of slave-driver and seems to have -a good deal of trouble with his men--is continually hiring and firing, -you’d say, from the appearance of his pay-rolls.” - -The big expert’s eyes narrowed. - -“Was he also promoted from some other place on the system?” he asked. - -“No; he is a new man. I don’t know where he got his experience; -somewhere in the East, I suppose.” - -“Another question,” put in Sprague. “Does Mr. Maxwell have the -appointment of his own motive-power chief?” - -“No; this appointment was made in New York--by the executive committee, -I imagine.” - -“Somebody’s nephew or brother-in-law?” queried the chemist, with a -twinkle in his eye. - -“I don’t know about that. I guess it happens that way, once in a while, -on any railroad. But Bascom is all kinds of capable.” - -Sprague shook his head. “The true test of capability is always in the -final result, my son,” he said reflectively; adding, “and results -nowadays are usually measured in dollars and cents. As an outsider, -I should say that this Mr. Bascom is a pretty expensive man to have -around, judging from his cost sheets. He drinks some, doesn’t he?” - -The young chief clerk closed one eye gravely. - -“I’m not supposed to know anything about that, Mr. Sprague.” - -“No, of course not. As you might say, it’s nobody’s business but Mr. -Bascom’s. By the way, what is that whistle blowing so persistently for?” - -Calmaine leaped out of his chair as if it had been suddenly connected -with the grounding wire of a forty-kilowatt generator. - -“By George! it’s a fire!” he exclaimed; and the sound of hurrying feet -in the corridor confirmed the surmise. Maxwell’s door opened at the -same instant, and the three rushed out to join the crowd which was -already streaming across the yard tracks toward the company’s shops. - -The fire was in the shops, originating in the boiler-room; and, thanks -to the timely alarm and the comparative earliness of the hour, it was -soon extinguished. Investigation, promptly instituted on the spot by -the superintendent, proved that it was the result of pure carelessness. -Some of the mechanics had washed their overalls and had hung them too -near the sheet-iron stack in the fire-room; that was all. - -Sprague lingered at Maxwell’s elbow while the investigation was -going on, and he appeared to be a more or less perfunctory listener -when Bascom, oozing wrathful profanity at every pore, told the -superintendent what he would do to the careless clothes-driers when -they should show up in the morning. But later, after the return to the -head-quarters offices, the man from Washington sat for a long time in -Maxwell’s easiest chair, smoking steadily and with his gaze fixed upon -the disused gas chandelier marking the exact centre of the ceiling. - -It was not until after Maxwell had finished his quota of night work and -was closing his desk that Tarbell came in to make a whispered report to -the big man apparently dreaming in the easy-chair. - -Sprague listened, nodded, and rose to join the office-closing retreat. - -“That is about what I thought, Archer,” he said soberly. “Now I have -one more little job for you, and when it is done we’ll call it a go for -to-night. Come around to my laboratory with me and I’ll explain it to -you.” And when the four of them reached the plaza-fronting street he -excused himself to Maxwell and the chief clerk and went, with Tarbell -at his elbow, to the little second-floor den in the Kinzie Building -where his experiments in soil analysis were conducted. - -Reaching the back room which served as the laboratory proper, Sprague -provided his follower with half a dozen small bottles, empty and -tightly corked. - -“There you are,” he said, from which it may be inferred that the nature -of the remaining “job” had been explained on the way up from the -railroad head-quarters. “Do it neatly, Archer, and don’t let them catch -you at it. Everything will have quieted down by this time, and you -shouldn’t have any trouble. I’ll wait for you here.” - -Tarbell was gone possibly half an hour, and when he returned the -bottles they were filled, two of them with a black-brown liquid, thick -and viscous, and four with what appeared to be specimens of more -or less dirty water. Each bottle was carefully marked on the blank -label pasted upon it. Sprague stood them in a row on the laboratory -working-table. - -“I shall be busy here for twenty or thirty minutes,” he said. “I don’t -want to ride a willing horse to death, but I’d be glad if you’d go by -the hotel and ask Mr. Maxwell to wait up for me. I want to see him -before he goes to bed.” - -Tarbell nodded, but he hesitated about going. - -“I got a hunch that we ain’t doin’ all the shadow work by our little -lonesomes, Mr. Sprague,” he ventured to say. But before he could go on, -Sprague lifted a finger for silence, made a whirling half-turn with a -swiftness marvellous in so huge a body, and flung himself through the -open door into the unlighted outer office-room to which the laboratory -was an inner extension. - -There were sounds of a collision, a fall, and a brief struggle before -Tarbell could get action. At the end of it Sprague came back into the -lighted laboratory, dragging a thick-set, square-shouldered man in -pepper-and-salt clothes; a man with a clean-shaven red face down the -side of which a thin line of blood was trickling. - -“You were eminently correct, Archer,” said the expert, slamming his -unresisting burden into a corner of the room after he had deftly gone -through the pepper-and-salt pockets for weapons with the result of -turning out a cheap revolver and a wicked-looking knife. “I’m sorry I -can’t keep my word and let you go to bed, but the plot has thickened a -little too rapidly. Go around to the Topaz and ask Mr. Maxwell to wait. -Then come back here and keep this fellow quiet while I do my work.” - -When Tarbell went out, Sprague quickly stripped his coat and went to -work at his laboratory table. For some little time the man in the -corner lay as he had been cast, and the worker at the table paid no -attention to him. But a few minutes before Tarbell’s return, the -red-faced man gasped, gurgled, and sat up to hold his head in his hands -as one trying to remember what had happened to him. Presently he looked -up, and after a long stare at the big figure of the man at the work -table, he found his voice. - -“Say, guv’ner, wot am I doin’ here?” he asked huskily. - -Sprague, who was skilfully dropping a fuming yellow liquor from a -glass-stoppered bottle into a beaker, replied without turning his head. - -“If anybody should ask, I should say you are waiting for an officer to -come and take you to jail.” - -“Who, me? Wot have I been doin’?” queried the husky one, in the -anxious rasp of a deeply aggrieved victim of circumstances. - -“You’ve been shoving threatening letters under my door in the Hotel -Topaz, for one thing,” said Sprague, still busy with his experiment. - -“Who, me? My Gawd--just lissen to ’im!” wheezed the red-faced man, as -if appealing to some third person invisible. - -A silence followed during which the crouching man’s feet drew -themselves by imperceptible fractions of an inch at a time into -position for a tackling spring. Sprague did not look aside, but when -the leg muscles of the man began to bulge as if testing themselves for -the leap, the worker at the table spoke again. - -“I shouldn’t try it if I were you. This stuff that I am fooling with is -nitric acid, ninety-eight per cent. pure. If any of it should happen to -get spilled on you, there wouldn’t be sweet oil enough in this town to -put the fire out.” - -“My Gawd!” gasped the red-faced one, suddenly sticking his feet out in -front of him again; and just then Tarbell came in. - -“I’ll be through in a minute, Archer,” said the experimenter at the -work-table, still without looking around. “Did you find your man?” - -“Yes; and Starbuck is with him. What do you want me to do with this -geezer?” - -“Nothing. I’ll fix him when we’re ready to go.” - -“I’ve got a pair of handcuffs,” Tarbell suggested. - -“They won’t be needed--not for this one.” - -Tarbell dragged out a chair and sat down, tilting comfortably against -the wall and staring half-absently at the man in the corner. “Before -I’d let any bare-handed man take my arsenal away from me and slam me -around like that,” he murmured, quite impersonally. - -The man on the floor lifted the challenge promptly. - -“Lemme git up and gimme half a chanst,” he croaked. “I won’t hurt you -none if you don’t git in the way o’ that door.” - -“Not this evenin’,” said Tarbell succinctly; and there the matter -rested until Sprague put his beakers and test-tubes aside, and, -resuming his coat, took a flat black box from a shelf and slipped it -into his pocket. - -“Now we’re ready,” he announced; and then he turned to the captured -spy. “We’re going to leave you here in the dark for a little while, and -there will be nothing between you and a get-away but a small matter of -fear. After we turn the lights off I shall leave a few bottles of stuff -around where they will do the most good. If you should happen to upset -one of them in moving about, it’s good-by. If it doesn’t burn you to -death, you’ll stifle.” - -“My Gawd!” said the captive; and he was still saying it over softly to -himself when they switched off the lights, shut the office doors, and -went away. - -“There is a good example of the power of matter over mind, Archer,” -said Sprague whimsically, when they reached the street. “If that fellow -would use his reason even a little bit he’d know that I hadn’t made any -very elaborate preparations to hold him; there wasn’t time between the -turning off of the lights and our leaving. Yet I’ll bet a small chicken -worth twenty-five dollars that we find him still crouching in his -corner and afraid to move when we go back. He saw me using acid in my -little experiment; saw the fumes and probably got a whiff of them. That -was enough.” - -They found Maxwell and Starbuck sitting on the hotel porch, smoking. -Sprague took the superintendent aside. - -“It’s rather worse than I thought it was, Dick,” he began, when they -had drawn their chairs a little apart. “That is my excuse for keeping -you up so late. We have one of the conspirators under a sort of mental -lock and key over at my place in the Kinzie Building, but he is only a -hired striker, and I’d like to flush the big game. Are you good for a -watch-meeting--you and Starbuck? It may last all night, and nothing may -come of it, but it’s worth trying.” - -Maxwell spread his hands. - -“Whatever you say, Calvin,” he acquiesced. “After the jolt you’ve given -me to-night, I can only get into the harness and pull when you give the -word.” - -“All right. We’ll take Tarbell for a guide. Tarbell, you know your way -around in the shops pretty well, don’t you?” - -“I reckon so,” was the young man’s reply. - -“We want to go to the foundry, or to some place near by where we can -keep an eye on the pickle shed. Can you get us there without arousing -anybody’s curiosity?” - -“Sure,” said Tarbell. - -“Good. Pitch out,” was the curt command, and the four of them left the -hotel to make a circuit through ill-lighted streets and around the -lower end of the eastern railroad yard to come at the long line of shop -buildings from the rear. - -On the way Maxwell inquired curiously: “What do you know about -pickling-sheds, Calvin?” - -“I know that every well-regulated foundry has one where castings which -are to be machined are treated with acid to take the hard sand-scale -off.” - -“And why, just why, are you anxious to get a near-hand view of ours, at -this time of night?” - -“I’m hoping we shall find the answer to that in your foundry yard, -Dick. If we don’t, the joke will be on me.” - -The approach to the locomotive-repairing section of the railroad plant -was made through a river-bank yard littered with slag dumps, piled -flasks, and heaps of scrap iron. There was no moon, and when they got -among the lumber sheds in the rear of the car-shops the darkness was -almost tangible. But Tarbell knew the ground, and when he finally -called a halt the twin cupola stacks of the foundry loomed before them -in the darkness and the acrid smell of the warm, moist moulding sand -was in the air. - -When the pickling-shed had been located for him, Sprague chose the -waiting-place under a flask shelter directly opposite and the silent -watch began. For a weary half-hour nothing happened. Though the month -was August, a cool wind crept down from the Timanyoni snow peaks, -and the splash and gurgle of the near-by river added its suggestion -of chill to the moonless night. Over in the western yards the night -crew was making up the midnight freights; but with the buildings of -the plant intervening, the noises of the shifter’s exhaust and the -clankings and crashings of the shunted cars came faintly to the ears of -the watchers. - -On the even hour of one the watchman made his round. They could see -his lantern twinkling through the windows of the shops, and later he -made a circuit of the outbuildings. His route led him finally through -the foundry, and as he came out the light of his lantern fell upon the -piled castings and the pickling-troughs, and on the carboys of vitriol. -There were four of the boxed acid-holders standing under the shed. -Sprague drew down his left cuff and made pencil marks on it in the -darkness when the watchman passed on. - -It was possibly fifteen minutes after the watchman had disappeared when -Maxwell broke the strained silence with a whisper. - -“Duck!” he said to Starbuck, who was standing up. “Dunkell’s coming -back--without his lantern!” - -Sprague spread his arms and crushed the other three back into the -shadows. “It isn’t the watchman this time--be ready!” he whispered; and -as he said it the figure of a man appeared coming down the littered -roadway from the blacksmith shop. - -Though he walked in darkness there was no incertitude about the man’s -movements. Turning abruptly out of the material-road he went straight -to the foundry shed. A moment later a beam of white light played -steadily upon the acid carboys, a sheltered beam which seemed to come -from a tiny electric search-light. Plainly they saw a pair of hands -place a large bottle on the ground, remove the stopper, and fix a tin -funnel in the neck. Then one of the carboys was tilted, presumably by -the same pair of hands, though the hands were invisible now, and a thin -stream of the yellow acid gurgled through the funnel. - -When the bottle was filled the carboy slowly righted itself; the hands -came in view again to remove the funnel and to replace the stopper; -and then the search-light went out with the faint snap of an electric -switch. Almost at the same instant the watchers saw the figure of the -man fading away into the inner and darker blackness of the foundry. - -“We’ve got to follow him, Tarbell,” said Sprague, hurriedly; “and we -lose out if he discovers us. Can you pilot us?” - -“I can,” asserted Maxwell, and under the superintendent’s lead the -shadow race was begun. - -Happily, there was a noisy diversion to make the secret pursuit -feasible. The train-making clamor had come down from the western yards, -and for the moment the yard crew was working on the freight-house -tracks opposite the shops. Under cover of the out-door clamor the four -pursuers were able to close up on the bottle-carrier until they were -treading almost in his footsteps. The route led through the foundry -floor to the machine shop. On the erecting pits were two locomotives, -apparently ready to be hauled out and put into service after their -period of back-shop repairs. - -Into the cab of one of the engines the bottle-bearer climbed, first -placing his burden carefully in the gangway. A little later they heard -him climbing over the coal in the tender, heard him remove the cover -of the water manhole, and heard the _glug-glug_ of liquid issuing -from a bottle-neck. - -Sprague silently drew a small square object from his pocket, the little -flat black box he had caught up as he was leaving his office in the -Kinzie Building. Then he whispered to Tarbell: “Cover him, Archer, -and don’t hesitate to shoot if you need to: ready!” At the word there -was a blinding burst of illumination and the report of a flash-light -cartridge, followed instantly by the crash of the breaking bottle, -silence, and black darkness. Then Sprague’s mellow voice boomed into -the stillness. - -“Come down, Mr. Bascom. We’ve got your picture, and a man who doesn’t -often miss what he shoots at is covering you with his gun.” - -It was a grim little group of five which gathered in the master -mechanic’s room in the office wing of the machine shop a few minutes -after the flash-light photograph had been taken in the erecting shop. -Bascom’s ruddy flush was gone when he sat down heavily in his desk -chair; but his natty brown crush hat was pushed back, and the gleam in -his small, lynx-like eyes was not of fear. - -“Just name the kind of a hand-spring you’d like to have me turn, -gentlemen,” he said, half-sardonically, when Tarbell had switched on -the second circuit of incandescents. “I’m not much of an acrobat, but -I’ll do the best I can to amuse you.” - -It was Sprague who did the talking for the prosecution. - -“We want to know first who is with you in this job of inside -worm-eating, Mr. Bascom,” he said coolly. - -“Nobody,” came the prompt lie. - -Sprague’s smile was affable. “I’m sure you’ll make one exception,” he -urged; “a man named Murtagh, who was for a little time one of your shop -machinists and who is now a press-repairer on _The Times-Record_.” - - -Bascom sat up and swore a savage oath. - -“So that damned scab has welshed, has he?” he grated. - -Sprague branched off and began again, this time in the straitly -criminal field. - -“How many locomotives have you treated with the acid cure, first and -last, Mr. Bascom?” - -“Enough so you’ll still be resetting flues in ’em a year from now.” - -This time it was Maxwell’s turn to swear, and for a minute or two the -air of the office was sulphurous. When the atmosphere had cleared -again, Sprague went on. - -“I presume that your defence in court will be that you were trying -an experiment to neutralize the effect of the alkaline water of this -region?” - -Bascom grinned appreciatively. “You’re an expert chemist yourself, Mr. -Sprague. The water in this country, outside of the Park, is pretty -badly alkali, as you probably know.” - -“But that defence will scarcely explain why you put acid in the -oil which is used for lubricating the internal parts of the -engines--cylinders and valves,” Sprague cut in quietly. - -The master mechanic’s chair righted itself with a crash, and the crash -punctuated another blast of bad language directed at the man who had -been left crouching in the corner in Sprague’s uptown laboratory. - -“So Murtagh gave you that, too, did he?” Bascom finished. “It’s your -lead, Mr. Sprague; what do you want me to play?” - -“Names,” said the expert curtly. - -“But if I say I was playing a lone hand?” - -“We should know you were lying. This acid business may be all your own; -but there are other things. You’ve had plenty of help in the drink-fest -and the demoralization game, Bascom.” - -The big master mechanic’s lips shut like the jaws of a steel trap. But -after a time he said: “What do I get if I spout on the others?” - -“A chance to get out of the country--eh, Maxwell?” - -The superintendent nodded. “Yes; if he can get away before I can find a -gun to kill him with.” - -Bascom reached into his desk, found a scratch-pad and tossed it over -to Starbuck. “Take ’em down,” he said briefly; and then followed a -black-list that was simply heart-breaking to Richard Maxwell, a man -who had built his reputation as a railroad executive, and would have -staked it instantly, upon the loyalty of his rank and file. Shop -foremen, roundhouse bosses, bridge men, yard foremen, section bosses, a -travelling engineer, a clerk here and a telegraph operator there--the -list seemed endless. - -When Bascom paused, Sprague began again. - -“What was the plan, Bascom, as it was outlined to these others?” - -The master mechanic’s smile showed his fine even teeth. - -“To make this jerk-water railroad a little easier to work for,” he -sneered. “When we found the right kind of a man we made him believe -that the discipline was keyed up too damned tight and showed him how he -could loosen up a little, if he felt like it. Murtagh was barkeep’ and -handed out the bug-juice. That’s all there was to it.” - -“Not quite all,” said Sprague evenly. “You got Murtagh his job on -_The Times-Record_ in order to have him handy without being -too much in the way or too much in evidence. How much do the -_Times-Record_ people know about the scheme for smashing the -Nevada Short Line securities from the inside?” - -Bascom laughed hardily. - -“You’ll never catch a newspaper man,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this: -Parker Higginson is a pretty smooth politician, and he’s got a mighty -long arm when it comes to reaching for the thing he wants. He was the -man who got me my job here, and I’ll bet those New York people who -appointed me don’t know yet why they did it. Another thing: when I’m -gone, Higginson will still be here--don’t you forget that!” - -“We’ll try to remember it,” Sprague promised. Then he looked at his -watch. “The overland passenger, westbound, will be here in a few -minutes, and when it goes, you may go with it, Mr. Bascom. But first we -want a few more names, the names of the New York people who are behind -both you and Mr. Higginson.” - -Bascom got up, went to a wardrobe in one corner of the office, and -dragged out two heavy suit-cases. - -“I’ve been fixed for this for some little time,” he volunteered. “Send -Murtagh to the stone-pile for splitting on us, and I won’t make any -claim for the half-month’s salary that’s due me. As to the names of -the big fellows, I only wish I knew them, Mr. Sprague. If I did, I’d -go east instead of west and make somebody come across with big money. -As it is, I guess it’s South America for mine. Good-night, all. I wish -you luck with the booze-fighters, Mr. Maxwell. You’ll have a bully good -time loading some of them back onto the water-automobile.” And he went -out into the night with a suit-case in either hand. - -“Talk about cold gall!” said Starbuck, when the door closed behind the -retreating figure of the big master mechanic; “Great Cat! that fellow’s -got enough to swim in.” Then he turned to Sprague. “Is the show over?” - -The man from Washington laughed genially. - -“That is for Maxwell to say. We might go uptown and give those -newspaper people a bad quarter of an hour, though I doubt if we’d make -any money at it.” - -Maxwell looked up quickly. - -“You think they’re in it, Calvin? Bascom wasn’t lying about that part -of it?” - -“Yes; they are in it up to their necks. I suppose it’s politics for -Higginson. Haven’t I heard somewhere that he is one of the State -bosses?” - -“You might have,” drawled Starbuck. “He’s It, all right.” - -Sprague stood up and yawned sleepily. - -“Perhaps, a little later on, we can throw a scare into this Mr. Parker -Higginson,” he suggested. “Just now, I’m for the hotel and a few -winks of much-needed sleep. Tarbell, you go up to my office and get -Murtagh. Have him locked up on a charge of--oh, any old charge will -do; breaking into my office to-night, if you can’t think of anything -better. If we can manage to hold onto him for a while, we may be able -to keep this Mr. Higginson quiet while Maxwell is straightening out his -booze-fighters. Let’s go.” - -“Hold on, just a minute,” pleaded Maxwell. “There are three of us here -who have seen the wheels go round, and I don’t forget that I was the -one who said there weren’t any wheels. How in the name of all that -is wonderful have you been able to work this puzzle out in less than -twelve hours, Sprague?” - -The big chemistry expert sat down again and locked his hands behind his -head. - -“My gosh!” he said; “have I got to open up a kindergarten for you -fellows when I’m so sleepy that I don’t know what I’m going to have -for breakfast to-morrow morning? It was easy, dead easy. Half an hour -with those delayed train crews at Angels this morning showed me that -the discipline strings were all off; one of the freight conductors -even offered me a nip out of his pocket-flask when I intimated that -I was thirsty. With that for a pointer, I had my eyes open at the -wreck, and what I saw there you all know. Moreover, I noticed that the -pocket-flasks were all alike, as if they’d all been handed out over the -same bar. All straight, so far?” - -“Go on,” said Maxwell. - -“I got my first pointer on Bascom at the wreck, too. I saw that the -men in the trainmaster’s gang didn’t drink when the boss was looking, -a condition which didn’t apply in the other crew. Again, I noticed -that Bascom took his track-clearing privilege with a large and -handsome disregard for the salvage. He didn’t care how much property -was destroyed in the process, and once I saw him give the signal to -the crane engineer to drop a car loaded with automobiles--which was -promptly done and the autos properly smashed.” - -“The cold-blooded devil!” growled the superintendent. - -“When we reached town, Tarbell here promptly confirmed my guess about -the whiskey; and in the evening Calmaine helped some more by going -with me over the pay-rolls for new names, and over the cost-sheets for -increases. Naturally, we dwelt longest upon the motive-power and repair -department, with its huge increases, and it so happened that my eye -fell upon the various charges for vitriol in carboys. I asked Calmaine -what use a railroad shop had for so much sulphuric acid, and he told me -it was used to pickle castings. Afterward I sent Tarbell out to bring -me samples of water from the tanks of the crippled locomotives on the -shop track and of the oil in their cylinder-cups. Analyses of both, -which I made on the spot, showed the presence of sulphuric acid in the -water, and also in the oil.” - -“Still, you didn’t have any cinch on Bascom,” Starbuck put in. - -“No, but things were leaning pretty heavily his way. Tarbell had traced -Murtagh for me and had found out the one thing that I needed to know; -namely, that Murtagh had been ‘placed’ on _The Times-Record_ -by Bascom’s recommendation. Murtagh was the man who put the -threatening note under my door; the note was printed on a scrap of -scratch-paper--copy paper--of the sort that you rarely find outside of -a newspaper office. Here I simply put two and two together. Bascom had -been conferring with Higginson, or his editor, or both of them, and -telling them of my rubbernecking at the wreck. They had agreed among -themselves that I’d better be warned off the grass, and they took about -the stupidest possible way they could think of to do it.” - -“Still, you didn’t have Bascom,” reiterated Starbuck. - -“No; but he was the man who had been signing the requisitions for the -big purchases of acid, and I was far enough along to chance a jump at -him. I knew that if he were the man who was poisoning the locomotives, -he wasn’t trusting anybody else; he was doing it himself, often and -by littles. I wasn’t at all sure of catching him to-night, of course; -but we saw him down here at the fire, and I thought there was an even -chance that he might stay and do a little more devilment.” - -Maxwell stood up and shook himself into his coat. - -“I’m onto you now, Sprague,” he chuckled, in a brave attempt to jolly -himself out of the depressive nightmare which had been weighing him -down for weeks. “You’re a guesser--a bold, bad four-flusher, with a -perfectly miraculous knack of drawing the other card you need when you -reach for it. Now, if you could only guess me out some way in which I -can straighten up these poor fellows of mine who have been pulled neck -and heels off of the water-wagon----” - -“Pshaw! that’s a cinch,” said the big man, yawning sleepily again. -“We’ll just put our heads together and get out a little circular -letter, talking to the boys just as you’d talk to a bunch of them -in your office. Tell ’em it’s all off, and the bar is closed and -padlocked, and you’ll have ’em all eating out of your hand again, -same as they used to. You don’t believe it can be done? You let me -write the letter and I’ll show you. All you have to do is to apply the -scientific principle; surround the whole subject and look at it calmly -and dispassionately, and--ye-ow! Say, I’m going to chance another -guess--the last in the box. If you don’t head me over to the hotel and -my room, you’ll have to carry me over and put me to bed. And that’s no -joke, with a man of my size. Let’s go.” - - - - -V - -The Cloud-Bursters - - -IT was an article in the news columns of _The Brewster Morning -Tribune_ which first called attention--the attention of the -Brewsterites and the inter-mountain world in general--to the plans and -purposes of the Mesquite Valley Land and Irrigation Company. - -Connabel, a hard-working reporter on _The Tribune_, had been sent -over to Angels, the old head-quarters of the Red Butte Western on the -other side of the Timanyonis, to get the story of a shooting affray -which had localized itself in Pete Grim’s place, the one remaining -Angelic saloon. Finding the bar-room battle of little worth as a news -story, and having time to kill between trains, Connabel had strolled -off up the gulch beyond the old copper mines and had stumbled upon the -construction camp of the Mesquite Company. - -Being short of “copy” on the fight story, the reporter had written up -the irrigation project, taking the general outlines from a foreman on -the job whose tongue he loosened with a handful of Brewster cigars. A -big earth dam was in process of construction across the mouth of the -rather precipitous valley of Mesquite Creek; and the mesa below, which, -to Connabel’s unrural eye, seemed to be a very Sahara of infertile -desolation, was to be made to blossom like the rose. - -Kendall, managing editor of _The Tribune_, had run the story, -partly because real news happened to be scarce at the moment, and -partly out of sheer astonishment that an enterprise of the magnitude -of the Mesquite project had not already flooded the country with the -brass-band publicity literature which is supposed to attract investors. - -That a land and irrigation company should actually wait until its dam -was three-fourths completed before it began to advertise was a thing -sufficiently curious to call for editorial comment. Why Editor Kendall -did not comment on the news item as a matter of singular interest is a -query which had its answer on the loggia porch of the Hotel Topaz in -the evening of the day on which Connabel’s write-up appeared. - -It was Kendall’s regular habit to close his desk at seven o’clock and -to spend a leisurely hour over his dinner at the Topaz before settling -down to his night’s work. On the evening in question he had chanced to -sit at table with Maxwell, the general superintendent of the railroad, -and with Maxwell’s friend and college classmate, Sprague. After dinner -the three had gone out to the loggia porch to smoke, and it was the -big chemistry expert who spoke of the Mesquite news story which had -appeared that morning in _The Tribune_. - -“Yes,” said the editor; “Connabel got on to that yesterday. I sent him -over to Angels to write up a shooting scrape, and he had more time on -his hands than he knew what to do with. We’ve all known, in a general -way, that an Eastern company was doing something over there, but I had -no idea that they’d got their dam pretty nearly done and were about -ready to open up for business.” - -“It’s wild-cat, pure and unadulterated!” cut in the railroad man -snappily. “What they are going to do to a lot of woolly investors will -be good and plenty. That Mesquite Mesa land is just about as fertile as -this street pavement here.” - -Kendall was a dried-up little wisp of a man, with tired eyes and a face -the color of old oak-tanned leather. - -“That is what you would think--that they are out for the easy money,” -he agreed. “But there is something a little queer about it. They -haven’t advertised.” - -“Not here,” supplemented Maxwell. “It would be a trifle too rank. -Everybody in the Timanyoni knows what that land is over in the edge of -the Red Desert.” - -“They haven’t advertised anywhere, so far as I can ascertain,” put -in the editor, quietly. “What is more, Jennings, who is the engineer -in charge of the dam-building and who seems to be the only man in -authority on the ground, came in this afternoon and raised sand with -me for printing the news story. He said they were not exploiting the -scheme here at all; that their money and their investors were all in -the East, and they were asking no odds of the Brewster newspapers.” - -“Bitter sort of devil, that fellow Jennings,” was Maxwell’s comment; -but it was the big chemist who followed the main thread of the argument. - -“What reason did he give for making such an extraordinary break as -that, Mr. Kendall?” - -“Oh, he had his reason pat enough,” rejoined the editor, with his tired -smile. “He said he realized that we have irrigated land of our own over -here in the Park upon which we are anxious to get settlers, and that -public sentiment here would naturally be against the Mesquite project. -He asked, as a matter of fairness, that we simply let the desert -project alone. He claimed that it had been financed without taking a -dollar out of the Timanyoni, so we could not urge that there were local -investors to be protected.” - -“Umph! that argument cuts both ways; it’s an admission that the Eastern -investors might need protection,” scoffed the railroad superintendent. -Then he added: “They certainly will if they expect to get any of the -money back that they have been spending in Mesquite Valley. Why, -Kendall, Mesquite Creek is bone-dry half the year!” - -“And the other half?” inquired Sprague. - -“It’s a cloud-burst proposition, like a good many of the foot-hill -arroyos,” Maxwell explained. “Once, in a summer storm, I saw a wall -of water ten feet high come down that stream-bed, tumbling twenty-ton -bowlders in the thick of it as if they had been brook pebbles. Then, -for a month, maybe, it would be merely a streak of dry sand.” - -“Perhaps they are counting upon storing the cloud-burst water,” -commented Kendall dryly. Then as he rose to go back to his work: “As -you say, Maxwell, it has all the ear-marks of the wild-cat. But so long -as it doesn’t stick its claws out at us, I suppose we haven’t much -excuse for butting in. Good-night, gentlemen. Drop in on me when you’re -up my way. Always glad to see you.” - -The two who remained on the hotel porch after the editor went away -smoked in comradely silence for a time. The night was enchantingly -fine, with a first-quarter moon swinging low in a vault of velvety -blackness, and a gentle breeze, fragrant with the breath of the -mountain forests, creeping down upon the city from the backgrounding -highlands. Across the plaza, and somewhere in the yards behind the long -two-storied railroad head-quarters building and station, a night crew -was making up trains, and the clank and crash of coupling cars mingled -with the rapid-fire exhausts of the switching engine. - -The big-bodied chemistry expert was the first to break the -companionable silence, asking a question which had reference to the -epidemic of disaster and demoralization which had recently swept over -Maxwell’s railroad. - -“Well, how are things coming by this time, Dick? Are the men responding -fairly well to that little circular-letter, man-to-man appeal we -concocted?” - -“They are, for a fact,” was the hearty assurance. “I have never seen -anything like it in railroading in all my knocking about. They’ve been -coming in squads to ’fess up and take the pledge, and to assure me that -it’s the water-wagon for theirs from now on. By George, Calvin, it’s -the most mellowing experience I’ve ever had! It proves what you have -always said, and what I have always wanted to believe: that the good -in the mass definitely outweighs the bad, and that it will come to the -front if you only know how to appeal to it.” - -“That’s right,” averred the chemist. “It is the strong hope of the -country that there is justice and fairness and sane common-sense at the -American bottom of us, if you can only get at it. I think you can call -the booze-fight and demoralization round-up a trouble past and begin -to look around you for the signs and symptoms of the next biff you’re -going to get.” - -The stockily built little man who stood as the railroad company’s chief -field-officer on the far-western fighting line moved uneasily in his -chair. - -“I have been hoping there wasn’t going to be any ‘next time,’” he said, -chewing thoughtfully upon his cigar. - -“I should hope with you, Dick, if we had been able, in any of the -former scrimmages, to secure good, indubitable court evidence against -the men who are backing these buccaneering raids on your securities. -The one thing that big money really fears to-day is the law--the law as -the Federal courts are likely to construe and administer it. But to -obtain your day in court you’ve got to have evidence; and thus far we -haven’t been able to sweat out anything that would implicate the man -or men higher up. Therefore, you may continue to sleep on your arms, -keeping a sharp eye out for surprises.” - -“I guess that is pretty good advice,” was the ready admission; “but -it is rather difficult to put into practice, Calvin. There are five -hundred miles of this railroad, and my job of operating them is big -enough to keep me busy without doing any detective stunts on the side.” - -“I know,” Sprague nodded reflectively, “and for that reason I’ve been -half-way keeping an eye out for you myself.” - -“You have? Don’t tell me you’ve been finding more grief!” - -Sprague threw away his outburned stub and found and lighted a fresh -cigar. - -“I don’t want to pose as an alarmist,” he offered at length, “but I’d -like to dig a little deeper into this Mesquite irrigation scheme. How -much or little do you know about it?” - -“Next to nothing. About two months ago Jennings, the construction -engineer, made application for the through handling, from Copah, of a -train-load of machinery, tools, and camp outfit. He asked to have the -stuff delivered at the end of the old copper-mine spur above Angels. We -put the spur in shape for him and delivered the freight.” - -“Well, what else?” - -“That is about all we have had to do with them in a business way. Two -weeks ago, when we had that wreck at Lobo, they were asking Benson -for an extension of the copper-mine spur to a point nearer their job, -chiefly, I think, so they could run a hand-car back and forth between -the camp and the saloon at Angels. Benson didn’t recommend it, and the -matter was dropped.” - -“Without protest?” - -“Oh, yes; Jennings didn’t make much of a roar. In fact, I’ve always -felt that he avoided me when he could. He is in town a good bit, but I -rarely see him. Somebody told me he tried once to get into the Town and -Country Club, and didn’t make it. I don’t know who would blackball him, -or why; but evidently some one did.” - -The ash grew a full half-inch longer on Sprague’s fresh cigar before he -said: - -“Doesn’t it occur to you that there is something a bit mysterious about -this dry-land irrigation scheme, Dick?” - -“I had never thought of it as being mysterious. It is a palpable -swindle, of course; but swindles are like the poor--they’re always with -us.” - -“It interests me,” said the big man, half-musingly. “A company, formed -nobody knows where or how, drops down in the edge of the Red Desert -and begins--absolutely without any of the clatter and clamor of -advertising that usually go with such enterprises--to build what, from -all reports, must be a pretty costly dam. If they have acquired a title -to the Mesquite Mesa, no one seems to have heard of it; and if they are -hoping to sell the land when the dam is completed, that, too, has been -kept dark. Now comes this little newspaper puff this morning, and Mr. -Jennings promptly turns up to ask Kendall to drop it.” - -“It is rather queer, when you come to put the odds and ends of it -together,” admitted the railroad man. - -“Decidedly queer, I should say.” So far the Government man went on the -line which he himself had opened. Then he switched abruptly. “By the -way, where is your brother-in-law, Starbuck? I haven’t seen him for -three or four days.” - -“Billy has been in Red Butte, figuring on a little mining deal in which -we are both interested. But I am looking for him back to-night.” - -“Good. If you should happen to see him when the train comes in, ask -him to come over here and smoke a pipe with me. Tell him I’m losing my -carefully acquired cowboy accent and I’d like to freshen it up a bit.” - -The superintendent promised; and, since he always had work to do, went -across to his office in the second story of the combined head-quarters -and station building. - -Some hour or so later the evening train came in from the west, and at -the outpouring of passengers from it one, a man whose air of prosperous -independence was less in the grave, young-old face and the loosely -fitting khaki service clothes than in the way in which he carried his -shoulders, was met by a boy from the superintendent’s office, and the -word passed sent him diagonally across the grass-covered plaza to swing -himself lightly over the railing of the hotel porch. - -“Dick made motions as if you wanted to smoke a peace pipe with me,” he -said, dropping carelessly into the chair which had been Maxwell’s. - -“Yes,” Sprague assented; and then he went on to explain why. At the end -of the explanation Starbuck nodded. - -“I reckon we can do it all right; go up on the early-morning train to -the canyon head, and take a chance on picking up a couple of bronc’s -at Wimberley’s ranch. But we could hoof it over from Angels in less -than a quarter of the time it’ll take us to ride up the river from -Wimberley’s.” - -“For reasons of my own, Billy, I don’t want to ‘hoof it,’ as you say, -from Angels. To mention one of them, I might ask you to remember that I -tip the scale at a little over the half of the third hundred, just now, -and I’m pretty heavy on my feet.” And therewith the matter rested. - -At an early hour the following morning, an hour when the sun was -just swinging clear over the far-distant blue horizon line of the -Crosswater Hills which marks the eastern limit of the great desert, two -men dropped from the halted eastbound train at the Timanyoni Canyon -water-tank and made their way around the nearest of the hogbacks to the -ranch house of one William Wimberley. - -As Starbuck had predicted, two horses were obtainable, though the -ranchman looked long and dubiously at the big figure of the Government -chemist before he was willing to risk even the heaviest of the horses -in his small _remuda_. - -“I reckon you’ll have ter set sort o’ light in the saddle, Mister,” -he said at the mounting; and then, apparently as an after-thought: -“By gollies, I wouldn’t have you fall over ag’inst me f’r a farm in -God’s country, stranger! Ef you was to live round here, we’d call you -Samson, and take up a c’lection fer the pore, sufferin’ Philistines. We -shore would.” - -Sprague laughed good-naturedly as he followed Starbuck’s lead toward -the river. He was well used to being joked about his size, and there -were times when he rather encouraged the joke. Big men are popularly -supposed to be more or less helpless, physically, and Sprague was -enough of a humorist to enjoy the upsetting, now and then, of the -popular tradition. In his college days he had held the record for the -heavy lift and the broad jump; there was no man of his class who could -stand up to him with the gloves or on the wrestling-mat; and in the -foot-ball field he was at once the strongest “back” and the fastest man -on the team--a combination rare enough to be miraculous. - -“You say you want to follow the river?” said Starbuck, when they had -struck in between the precipitous hills among which the green flood of -the Timanyoni made its way toward the canyon portal. - -“Yes, if it is at all practicable. I’d like to get some idea of the lay -of the land between this and the camp on the Mesquite.” - -“I’m anticipatin’ that you’ll get the idea, good and plenty,” agreed -the superintendent’s brother-in-law dryly; and during the three-hour -jaunt that followed, the prediction was amply confirmed. There was no -trail, and for the greater part of the way the river flowed between -rocky hogbacks, with only the narrowest of bowlder-strewn margins on -either hand. - -Time and again they were forced to dismount and to lead the horses -around or over the natural obstructions; and once they were obliged to -leave the river valley entirely, climbing and descending again by a -circuitous route among the rugged hills. - -It was late in the forenoon when they came finally into the region of -upper basins, and, turning to the eastward, threaded a dry arroyo which -brought them out upon the level-bottomed valley known as the Mesquite -Mesa. It was not a mesa in the proper meaning of the term; it was -rather a vast flat wash brought down from the hills by the sluicing of -many floods. Here and there its sun-baked surface was cut and gashed -by dry gullies all pointing toward the river, and each bearing silent -witness to the manner in which the mesa had been formed. - -At a point well within this shut-in moraine, Sprague dismounted, tossed -his bridle reins to Starbuck, and went to examine the soil in the -various gullies. Each dry ditch afforded a perfect cross-section of -the different strata, from the thin layer of sandy top-soil to the -underlying beds of coarse sandstone pebbles and gravel. Sprague kicked -the edges from a dozen of the little ditches, secured a few handfuls of -the soil, and came back shaking his head. - -“I don’t wonder that these people don’t want to advertise their land, -Billy,” he commented, climbing, with a nimbleness astonishing in so -large a man, to the back of his mount. “As they say down in Tennessee, -you couldn’t raise a fuss on it. Let’s amble along and see what they -are doing at the head works.” - -At the head of the wash the valley of Mesquite Creek came in abruptly -from the right. On a bench above the mouth of the valley they found the -construction camp of the irrigation company, a scattered collection of -shack sheds and tents, a corral for the working stock, and the usual -filth and litter characterizing the temporary home of the “wop.” - -Across the valley mouth a huge earthwork was rising. It was the -simplest form of construction known to the dam-building engineer: a -mere heaping of earth and gravel moved by two-horse scrapers from the -slopes of the contiguous hills on either hand. There was no masonry, -no concrete, not even the thin core wall which modern engineering -practice prescribes for the strengthening member in an earth -embankment designed to retain any considerable body of water. - -Moreover, there was no spillway. The creek, carrying at this season of -the year its minimum flow, had been stopped off without an outlet; and -the embankment upon which the force was heaping the scrapings from the -hillsides was already retaining a good-sized lake formed by the checked -waters of the stream. - -Starbuck and Sprague had drawn rein at the outskirts of the -construction camp, and they were not molested until Sprague took a flat -black box from his pocket, opened it into a camera, and was preparing -to take a snap-shot of the dam. At that, a man who had been lounging in -the door of the camp commissary, a dark-faced, black-bearded giant in -brown duck and service leggings, crossed the camp street and threw up a -hand in warning. - -“Hey, there; hold on--that don’t go!” he shouted gruffly, striding -up to stand squarely in the way of the camera. “You can’t take any -pictures on this job.” - -“Sorry,” said Sprague, giving the intruder his most amiable smile, “but -you were just a half-second too late,” and he closed the camera into -its box-like shape and dropped it into his pocket. - -The black-bearded man advanced threateningly. - -“This is company property, and you are trespassers,” he rasped. “Give -me that camera!” - -Starbuck’s right hand went softly under his coat and stayed there, and -his steady gray eyes took on the sleepy look that, in his range-riding -days, had been a sufficient warning to those who knew him. Sprague -lounged easily in his saddle and ignored the hand extended for the -camera. - -“You are Mr. Jennings, I take it,” he said, as one who would temporize -and gain time. “Fine dam you are building there.” - -“_Give me that camera!_” - -Sprague met the angry eyes of the engineer and smiled back into them. - -“I’ll take it under consideration,” he said, half-jocularly. “You’ll -give me a little time to think about it, won’t you?” - -Jennings’s hand dropped to the butt of the heavy revolver sagging at -his hip. - -“Not a damned minute!” he barked. “Hand it over!” - -Starbuck was closing up slowly on the opposite side of his companion’s -horse, a movement which he brought about by a steady knee pressure on -the bronco’s off shoulder. Jennings’s fingers were closing around -the grip of his pistol when the astounding thing happened. Without so -much as a muscle-twitching of warning Sprague’s left hand shot out, -the fingers grappled an ample breast-hold on the engineer’s coat and -shirt-bosom, and Jennings was snapped from his feet and flung, back -down, across the horn of Sprague’s saddle much as if his big body had -been a bag of meal. Starbuck reached over, jerked the engineer’s weapon -from its holster, broke it to eject the cartridges, and flung it away. - -“Now you can get down,” said Sprague quietly; and when he loosed the -terrible clutch, Jennings slid from the saddle-horn and fell, cursing -like a maniac. - -“Stand still!” ordered Starbuck, when the engineer bounded to his feet -and started to run toward the commissary, and the weapon that made the -bidding mandatory materialized suddenly from an inner pocket of the -ex-cowman’s khaki riding-coat. - -But the trouble, it seemed, was just fairly getting under way. Up -from the embankment where the scrapers were dumping came two or three -foremen armed with pick-handles. The commissary was turning out its -quota of rough-looking clerks and time-keepers, and a mob of the -foreign laborers--the shift off duty--came pouring out of the bunk -houses and shacks. - -[Illustration: Sprague had unlimbered and focussed his camera again and -was calmly taking snap-shot after snap-shot.] - -Sprague had unlimbered and focussed his camera again and was calmly -taking snap-shot after snap-shot: of the dam, of the impounded lake, -of the up-coming mob, and of the black-bearded man held hands-up in -the middle of the camp street. When he shut the box on the last of the -exposures he turned to Starbuck with a whimsical smile wrinkling at the -corners of his eyes. - -“They don’t seem to be very enthusiastic about keeping us here, Billy,” -he said, with gentle irony. “Shall we go?” - -Starbuck shook the reins over the neck of his mount and the two horses -wheeled as one and sprang away down the rough cart-road leading to the -end of the copper-mine spur above Angels. At the retreat, some one on -the commissary porch began to pump a repeating rifle in the general -direction of the pair, but no harm was done. - -Starbuck was the first to break the galloping silence when an -intervening hill shoulder had cut off the backward view of the camp at -the dam, and what he said was purely complimentary. - -“You sure have got your nerve with you, and the punch to back it up,” -he chuckled. “I reckon I’m goin’ to wake up in the middle of the night -laughin’ at the way you snatched that rustler out of his tracks and -slammed him across the saddle. I’d give a heap to be able to do a thing -like that; I sure would.” - -“Call it a knack,” rejoined Sprague modestly. “You pick up a good many -of those little tricks when you’re training on the squad. Perhaps -you’ve never thought of it, but the human body is easier to handle, -weight for weight, than any inanimate object could possibly be. That is -one of the first things you learn in tackling on the foot-ball field.” - -They were jogging along slowly by this time and had passed the -copper-mine switch on the road leading to the station at Angels. -Starbuck was not over-curious, but the experiences of the forenoon were -a little puzzling. Why had his companion wished to take the long, hard -ride up the valley of the Timanyoni? And why, again, had he taken the -chance of a fight for the sake of securing a few snap-shot pictures -of the irrigation company’s construction camp and dam? A third query -hinged itself upon the decidedly inhospitable, not to say hostile, -attitude of Jennings, the irrigation company’s field-officer. Why -should he object so strenuously to the common sight-seer’s habit of -kodaking anything and everything in sight? - -Starbuck was turning these things over in his mind when they reached -Angels. As they rode into town Sprague glanced at his watch. - -“I have been wondering if we couldn’t get this man Dickery at the town -corral to take charge of these horses of ours until Wimberley can come -and get them?” he said. “That would make it possible for us to catch -the eleven-thirty train for Brewster.” - -Starbuck said it was quite feasible, and by the time they had disposed -of the horses the train was whistling for the station. When they -boarded the train, Sprague proposed that they postpone the mid-day -meal in the diner in order to ride out on the rear platform of the -observation-car. - -“We’ll get to town in time for a late luncheon at the hotel,” was the -way he put it; “and on as fine a day as this I like to ride out of -doors and take in the scenery.” - -Starbuck acquiesced, and smiled as one well used to the scenery. Truly, -the trip through the Timanyoni Canyon was one which usually brought -the tourists crowding to the rear platform of the train, but until the -morning of this purely sight-seeing jaunt he had been thinking that -Maxwell’s big friend was altogether superior to the scenic attractions. - - -Now, however, Sprague seemed greatly interested in the canyon passage. -Again and again he called his companion’s attention to the engineering -difficulties which had been overcome in building the narrow pathway -for the rails through the great gorge. Particularly, he dwelt upon the -stupendous cost of making the pathway, and upon the temerarious courage -of the engineers in adopting a grade so near, in dozens of places, to -the level of the foaming torrent at the track-side. - -“Yes,” Starbuck agreed; “it sure did cost a heap of money. Dick says -the thirty-six miles are bonded at one hundred thousand dollars a mile, -and even that didn’t cover the cost of construction on some of the -miles.” - -“But why did they put the grade so close to the river level?” persisted -the expert, when the foam from a mid-stream bowlder breathed a misty -breath on them as the train slid past. “Isn’t there constant trouble -from high water?” - -“No, the Timanyoni’s a tolerably dependable creek,” was Starbuck’s -answer. “Summer and winter it holds its own, with nothing like the -variation you find in the Mississippi Valley rivers. An eight-foot -rise is the biggest they’ve ever recorded at the High Line dam, so J. -Montague Smith tells me.” - -“They are fixed to take care of that much of a rise at the High Line -dam, are they?” queried Sprague. - -“Oh, yes; I reckon they could take a bigger one than that, if they had -to. That dam is built for keeps. Williams, who was the constructing -engineer, says that the dam and plant will stand when the water of the -river is pouring through the second-story windows of the power-house.” - -“And that, you would say, would never happen?” put in the expert -thoughtfully, adding, “If it should happen, your brother-in-law would -have to build him a new railroad through this canyon, wouldn’t he?” - -“He sure would. That eight-foot rise I spoke of gave them a heap of -trouble up here--washouts to burn!” - -“What caused that rise--rains?” - -“Rains and cloud-bursts, in the season of the melting snows. It was -just as Smith was turning heaven and earth upside down to get the dam -completed, and for a little spell they sure was anticipatin’ trouble -a-plenty; thought they were going to be plumb paralyzed.” - -“I want to meet that man Smith,” said the expert, going off at a -tangent, as his habit was. “Stillings, your friend the lawyer who has -his offices next door to my laboratory, says he’s a wonder.” - -“Smith is all right,” was Starbuck’s verdict. “He’s a first-class -fighting man, and he doesn’t care much who knows it. He got big rich -out of that High Line fight, married old Colonel Baldwin’s little peach -of a daughter, and is layin’ off to live happy ever afterward.” - -From that on, the rear platform talk had to do chiefly with Mr. J. -Montague Smith and his plucky struggle with the hydro-electric trust -which had tried, unsuccessfully as the event proved, to steal the High -Line dam and water privilege. In due time the train shot out of the -gorge, and after a dodging course among the Park hills, came to the -skirting of the High Line reservoir lake lying like a silver mirror in -its setting of forested buttes and spurs. - -At the lower end of the lake, where the white concrete dam stretched -its massive rampart across the river gorge, the train halted for a -moment in obedience to an interposing block-signal. It was during the -momentary stop that a handsome young fellow with the healthy tan of the -hill country browning his frank, boyish face, came out of the near-by -power-house, ran up the embankment and swung himself over the railing -of the observation platform. - -“Hello, John!” said Starbuck; and then he introduced the new-comer to -his companion. - -“Glad to know you, Mr. Sprague,” said the young man, whose hearty -hand-grip was an instant recommendation to the good graces of the big -expert. “I’ve been hearing of you off and on all summer. It’s a saying -with us out here that any friend of Dick Maxwell’s owns Brewster--or as -much of it as he cares to make use of.” - -“I have certainly been finding it that way, Mr. Smith,” Sprague -rejoined, in grateful recognition of the Brewster hospitality. And -then: “We were just talking about you and your dam as we came along, -Starbuck and I. You have a pretty good head of water on, haven’t you?” - -“An unusually good head for this time of the year. The heavy storms we -have been having in the eastern foot-hills account for it. Our power -plant is working at normal load, and our ranchmen are all using water -liberally in their late irrigating, and yet you see the quantity that -is going over the splash-boards.” - -“Yes, I see,” observed Sprague thoughtfully. And when the train began -to move onward: “With this big reservoir behind you, I suppose a sudden -flood couldn’t hurt you, Mr. Smith?” - -The young man with the healthy tan on his clean-cut face promptly -showed his good business sense. - -“We think we have a comfortably safe installation, but we are not -specially anxious to try it out merely for the satisfaction of seeing -how much it would stand,” was the conservative reply. - -Sprague looked up curiously from his solid planting in the biggest of -the platform folding-chairs. - -“And yet, three days ago, Mr. Smith, you said, in the presence of -witnesses, that a ten-foot rise wouldn’t endanger your dam or your -power plant,” he put in shrewdly. - -Mr. J. Montague Smith, secretary and treasurer of the Timanyoni High -Line Company, was plainly taken unawares. - -“How the dev--” he began; and then he tried again. “Pardon me, Mr. -Sprague; you hit me when I wasn’t looking for it. I believe I did say -something like that; in fact, I’ve said similar things a good many -times.” - -“But not in exact feet and inches, I hope,” said Sprague, with a show -of mild concern. “These exactnesses are what murder us, Mr. Smith. Now, -I presume if somebody should come to you to-day and threaten to turn -another ten feet of river on you, you’d object, wouldn’t you?” - -“We certainly should--object most strenuously!” - -“Yet, if that person were so minded, he might quote you as having said -that ten additional feet wouldn’t hurt you.” - -The young treasurer laughed a trifle uneasily. - -“I can’t believe that anybody would make a bit of well-meant boasting -like that an excuse for--but it’s altogether absurd, you know. Your -case is unsupposable. Nobody pushes the button for the rains or the -cloud-burst storms. When you introduce me to the fellow who really has -the making of the weather in the Timanyoni head-waters, I’ll be very -careful what I say to him.” - -“Just so,” said the expert quietly; and then a long-continued blast of -the locomotive whistle announced the approach to Brewster. - -Sprague took leave of his latest acquaintance at the station entrance, -where a trim, high-powered motor-car, driven by an exceedingly pretty -young woman in leather cap, gauntlets, and driving-coat, was waiting -for Smith. - -“I am a soil expert, as you may have heard, Mr. Smith,” he said at -parting, “and I am interested at the moment in alluvial washes--the -detritus brought down from the high lands by the rivers. One of these -days I may call upon you for a little information and help.” - -“Command me,” said the young financier, with another of the hearty -hand-grips; and then he climbed in beside the pretty young woman and -was driven away. - -Sprague was unusually silent during the tardy luncheon shared with -Starbuck in the Topaz café; and Starbuck, who never had much to say -unless he was pointedly invited, was correspondingly speechless. -Afterward, with a word of caution to his table companion not to mention -the morning’s adventure to any one, Sprague went to his laboratory, -to test the specimens of soil gathered on the Mesquite mesa, Starbuck -supposed. - -But the supposition was wrong. What Mr. Calvin Sprague busied himself -with during the afternoon was the careful developing of the film taken -from his pocket camera, and the printing of several sets of pictures -therefrom. These prints he placed in his pocket note-book, and the book -and its enclosures went with him when, after the evening meal, at which -he had somehow missed both Maxwell and Starbuck, he climbed the three -flights of stairs in the Tribune Building and presented himself at the -door of Editor Kendall’s den. - -Kendall was glad to see him, or at least he said he was, and, -waving him to a chair at the desk end, produced a box of rather -dubious-looking, curiously twisted cigars, at which the visitor shook -his head despondently. - -“You’d say I was the picture of health, wouldn’t you, Kendall, and you -wouldn’t believe me if I were to tell you that I am smoking a great -deal too much?” he said, with a quizzical smile that was on the verge -of turning into a grin. - -The editor was not fooled; as a matter of fact, it was an exceedingly -difficult matter to fool the tired-eyed tyrant of _The Tribune_ -editorial rooms. - -“Cut it out,” he said, with his mirthless laugh. “You wouldn’t expect -to find fifty-cent _Rienas_ in a newspaper shop--any more than I’d -expect you to climb up here with a news story for me. Smoke your own -cigars, and be damned to you.” And in sheer defiance he lighted one of -his own dubious monstrosities, while Sprague was chuckling and passing -his pocket-case of fat black _Maduros_. - -“You say, any more than you’d expect a news story. Perhaps I have a -news story for you. Cast your eye over these,” and he threw out the -bunch of lately made photographs. - -The editor went over the collection carefully, and at the end of the -inspection said, “Well, what’s the answer?” - -“The construction camp of the Mesquite Land and Irrigation Company -at about half-past ten this forenoon. The held-up man is Mr. Engineer -Jennings, posed by Billy Starbuck, who was kindly holding a gun on him -for me. The people running are Jennings’s workmen, coming to help him -obliterate us. The water is the irrigation lake; the heap of dirt is -the dam.” - -“Still, I don’t quite grasp the news value,” said Kendall doubtfully. -“Why should Jennings wish to obliterate you?” - -“Because I was taking pictures on his job. He was unreasonable enough -to demand my camera, and to make the sham bad man’s break of handling -his gun without pulling it on me.” - -The editor studied the pictures long and thoughtfully. - -“You’ve got something up your sleeve, Mr. Sprague; what is it?” he -asked, after the considering pause. - -Sprague drew his chair closer; and for five minutes the city editor, -who had come in for a word with his superior, forbore to break in -upon the low-toned earnest conference which was going on at the -managing editor’s desk. At the end of it, however, he heard Kendall -say, “I’ll get Monty Smith on the wire, and if he coincides with you, -we’ll take a hand in this. I more than half believe you’re right, but -you’ll admit that it sounds rather incredible. _The Tribune’s_ -motto is ‘All the news that is news,’ but we don’t want to be classed -among the ‘yellows.’” - -“You run no risk in the present instance,” was Sprague’s confident -assurance. “Of course, there is no direct evidence; if there were, the -case would be promptly taken to the courts. As a matter of fact, I’m -hoping that Mr. Smith will take it to the courts as it stands. But in -any event, an appeal to the public will do no harm.” - -“All right; we’ll see what Smith says,” said Kendall; and then the -patient city editor had his inning. - -Leaving the Tribune Building, the chemistry expert went to the nearest -telephone and called for the house number of Mr. Robert Stillings, -the attorney who served locally for the railroad company and was also -counsel for the High Line people. Happily, it was the young lawyer -himself who answered the ’phone. - -“This is Sprague,” said the down-town caller. “How busy are you this -evening?” - -The answer was apparently satisfactory, since the big man went on: “All -right; I wish you would arrange to meet me in the lobby of the Topaz. -Catch the next car if it won’t hurry you too much. You’ll do it? Thank -you. Good-by.” - -Fifteen minutes later the Government man, writing a letter at one -of the desks in the hotel lobby, looked up to greet his summoned -visitor, a keen-eyed, self-contained young man whose reputation as a -fearless fighter in just causes was already spreading from the little -inter-mountain city of his adoption and becoming State-wide. - -“I’m here,” said Stillings briefly; and Sprague rose and drew him aside -into one of the alcoves. - -For some little time after they had drawn their chairs together, -Sprague held the floor, talking earnestly and exhibiting a set of the -snap-shot pictures. Stillings listened attentively, examining the -pictures by the aid of a small pocket magnifier. But when Sprague -finished he was shaking his head doubtfully, unconsciously following -the example set by _The Tribune_ editor. - -“We have nothing definite to go on, Mr. Sprague, as you yourself admit. -These people are well within their legal rights. As you probably know, -there is no statutory provision in this State requiring the builders -of a dam to conform to any particular plan of construction; and, as a -matter of fact, there are dozens of dams just like this one--mere earth -embankments without masonry of any kind.” - -“Do you mean to say that the safety of the entire Timanyoni Valley can -be endangered by a structure like this, and that the property owners -who are imperilled have no legal recourse?” demanded the expert. - -“Recourse, yes; plenty of it after the fact. If the dam should give way -and cause damage, the irrigation company would be liable.” - -“Humph!” snorted the big-bodied one, half-contemptuously. “Law is one -of the few things that I have never dabbled in. What you say amounts to -this: if I find a man training a cannon on my house, I have no right to -stop him; I can only try to collect damages after the gun has gone off -and ripped a hole through my property. I could make a better law than -that myself!” - -Stillings was staring thoughtfully through the opposite window at the -lights in the railroad building across the plaza. - -“There are times, Mr. Sprague, when we all feel that way; crises which -seem to call for something in the way of extra-judicial proceedings,” -he admitted. And then: “Have you told Maxwell about this?” - -“Not specifically. Dick has troubles of his own just now; he has had -enough of them this summer to turn his hair gray, as you know. I have -been hoping that this latest move of the enemy could be blocked -without dragging him into it.” - -Stillings turned quickly. “That is the frankest thing you’ve said this -evening. Is it another move of the enemy--the New Yorkers?” - -Sprague spread his hands and his big shoulders went up in a shrug. - -“You have just as much incriminating evidence as I have. How does it -strike you?” - -The attorney shook his head in doubtful incredulity, again -unconsciously following Editor Kendall’s lead. - -“It doesn’t seem possible!” he protested. “Think of the tremendous -consequences involved--outside of the crippling of the railroad. The -Short Line wouldn’t be the only sufferer in case of a dam-break in -the Mesquite. The entire valley would be flood-swept, and our High -Line dam--” he stopped abruptly and half-rose to his feet. “Good -Lord, Sprague! the breaking of the High Line dam would mean death and -destruction without end!” - -Sprague had found a cigar in an overlooked pocket and was calmly -lighting it. Though he did not tell Stillings so, the argument had -finally gotten around into the field toward which he had been pushing -it from the first. - -“Three days ago, your High Line treasurer, Mr. J. Montague Smith, -declared in the presence of witnesses--it was right here in this hotel -lobby, and I happened to overhear it--that a ten-foot rise in the -river, which, as you know, would submerge and sweep away miles of the -railroad track in the canyon, would by no means endanger his dam. There -you are, Mr. Stillings. Now fish or cut bait.” - -“Great Scott! what could Smith have been thinking of!” ejaculated the -lawyer. - -“It was merely a bit of loyal brag, as he admitted to Starbuck and me -on the train this afternoon; and it had been craftily provoked by one -of the men who heard it. But he said it, and what is more, he said it -to--Jennings!” - -This time the attorney’s start carried him out of his chair and stood -him upon his feet. - -“I shall have to see Smith at once,” he said hurriedly. “Still, I can’t -believe that these New York stock pirates would authorize any such -murderous thing as this!” - -“Authorize murder or violence? Of course not; big business never does -that. What it does is to put a man into the field, telling him in -general terms the end that is to be accomplished. The head pushers -would turn blue under their finger-nails if you’d charge them with -murder.” - -“But that is what this would amount to--cold-blooded murder!” - -“Hold on a minute,” objected Sprague. “Let’s apply a little scientific -reasoning. Suppose this thing has been accurately figured out, -engineering-wise. Suppose that, by careful computation, it has been -found that a certain quantity of water, turned loose at the mouth of -Mesquite Valley, would produce a flood of a certain height in the -full length of Timanyoni Canyon--say ten or twelve feet--sufficient -to obliterate thirty-five or forty miles of the railroad track. Below -its path of the greatest destruction it comes out into your High Line -reservoir lake, with some miles farther to go, and a greatly enlarged -area over which to diffuse itself.” - -Stillings was nodding intelligence. “I am beginning to see,” he said. -“Ten feet in the canyon wouldn’t necessarily mean ten feet at Smith’s -dam.” - -“No; but at the same time Smith is on record as having said that ten -feet wouldn’t endanger his dam or the power plant. So there you are -again.” - -Stillings walked the length of the alcove twice with his head down and -his hands in his pockets before he stopped in front of the expert to -say: “You’ve half-convinced me, Mr. Sprague. If we could get the barest -shred of evidence that these people are building a dam which isn’t -intended to hold----” - -“There spoke the lawyer again,” laughed Sprague. “If you had the -evidence, what would you do?” - -“Institute legal proceedings at once.” - -“And how long would it take you to get action?” - -“Oh, that would depend upon the nature of the evidence I had to offer, -of course.” - -Sprague laughed again, derisively this time. - -“Yes, I thought so; and while you were getting out your writs and -monkeying around--do you know what that piece of canyon track cost, -Mr. Stillings? I was told to-day that three million dollars wouldn’t -replace it--to say nothing of what it would mean to the railroad -company to have its through line put out of business indefinitely. No; -if we mean to----” - -The interruption was the intrusion into the alcove of a huge-framed, -hard-faced man who was fumbling in his pocket for a paper. - -“Hello, Harding,” said Stillings; and then, jokingly: “What brings the -respected sheriff of Timanyoni County charging in upon us at this time -of night?” - -“It’s a warrant,” said the sheriff, half in apology. And then to -Sprague: “I hate like the mischief to trouble you, Mr. Sprague, but -duty’s duty.” - -Sprague smiled up at the big man. “Tell us about it, Mr. Harding. You -needn’t bother to read the warrant.” - -“It’s that scrap you had with Jennings up at the Mesquite this morning. -He’s swore out a warrant against you for assault and battery.” - -“And are you going to lock me up over night? I fancy that is what he -would like to have you do.” - -“Not me,” said the sheriff good-naturedly. “I got Judge MacFarland out -o’ bed and made him come down to his office. I’m goin’ to ask you to -walk around there with me, just to let me out of it whole. I’ve fixed -it with the judge so you won’t have to give bail.” - -“I’ll go with you,” Stillings offered; and a few minutes later, in the -magistrate’s office, the Government man had bound himself on his own -recognizance to appear in court the next morning to answer the charge -against him. - -On the sidewalk in front of the justice shop, Stillings reverted to the -more pressing matter. - -“I’m going to see Smith before I sleep, if I have to drive out to -the Baldwin ranch to find him,” he declared. “In the meantime, Mr. -Sprague, if you can devise any scheme by which we can get a legal hold -on these fellows--anything that will serve as an excuse for our asking -that an injunction be issued----” - -“That would come before Judge Watson, wouldn’t it?” Sprague broke in. - -“Yes.” - -“See Kendall, of _The Tribune_, about that. From what he told me a -couple of hours ago, I should say that your petition for an injunction -would be only a crude loss of time. We’ll try to think of a better way, -or at least a more effective way. Good-night; and don’t omit to throw -the gaff into Smith, good and hard.” - -On the morning following Sprague’s visit to _The Tribune_ -editorial rooms, the newspaper-reading public of Brewster had a small -sensation served, in Starbuck’s phrase, “hot from the skillet.” A good -portion of the front page of _The Tribune_ was given to a news -story of the work which was under way in the Mesquite Valley, and -pictures were printed of the camp, the dam, and the growing lake. - -On the editorial page there was a caustic arraignment of the Mesquite -Company, which was called upon to show cause why it should not be -condemned as a public nuisance of a kind which had already brought -much reproach upon the West as a field for legitimate investment, and -the suggestion was made that a committee of responsible citizens be -sent to investigate the Mesquite project, to the end that the charges -made might be either substantiated or set aside. - -Specifically, these charges were that there was no arable land within -reach of the Mesquite dam, and that the dam itself was unsafe. -Throughout his editorial Kendall had judiciously refrained from making -any mention of a possible disaster to the railroad; but he hinted -broadly at the danger to which the High Line dam--the source of the -city’s power and lights--would be subjected in the event of a flood -catastrophe on the distant project. - -Maxwell, who was living at the hotel in the absence of his family, -had read the paper before he came down to join Sprague at the -breakfast-table, and, like every other newspaper reader in Brewster -that morning, he was full of the latest sensation. - -“By George, Calvin,” he began, “somebody has been stirring up the mud -for those people we were talking about night before last. Have you seen -_The Tribune_?” - -Sprague nodded assent. - -“What do you make of it?” asked the railroad man. - -“I should say that somebody--possibly the High Line management--is -beginning to sit up and take notice, wouldn’t you?” - -“Y-yes; but see here--any such thing as Kendall hints at would knock -the Nevada Short Line out long before it would get to the High Line -dam!” - -“Naturally,” said Sprague coolly. - -“Great Jehu! was that what you meant when you were making me dig this -Mesquite project over for you the other day?” - -“I didn’t want to drag you into it, and don’t yet,” said Sprague -quietly. “You’ve had grief enough for one summer. But the detective -half of me tells me that there is little doubt that this thing is -another attempt on the part of the big-money crowd to side-swipe your -railroad off the map. It can be done, and you have no preventive -recourse; Stillings says you haven’t.” - -“But, Calvin--something’s _got_ to be done! Are we going to sit -still and----” - -“One kind of a something is doing itself, right now,” interrupted -Sprague. “It’s your play, this time, to keep out of it, if you can. -You’d say that the High Line people, J. Montague Smith and his crowd, -inspired that blast in _The Tribune_ this morning, wouldn’t you?” - -“It looks that way, yes.” - -“Well, let them stir up the mud and make the fight. You sit tight in -the boat and say nothing. What kind of an agent or operator have you at -Angels?” - -“Disbrow?--he’s a good man; so good that I’m going to promote him to a -better station next week.” - -“Let that promotion wait a while. Give this good man instructions to -watch every move that Jennings makes, and to report at once anything -out of the ordinary that may happen. Do you get that?” - -“I’ll do it. Anything else?” - -“No, not at present. Later on, say after the evening edition of _The -Times-Record_ comes out, I may want to get you on a quick wire. But -the chief thing just now is to post the Angels man, and to have him -keep in touch with you.” - -After Maxwell had gone the chemistry expert finished his breakfast with -epicurean leisure, smoked a reflective cigar in comfortable solitude -in the hotel lobby, and, when the court hour arrived, went around to -the office of the justice of the peace to answer to the charge of -assault. As was to be expected, Jennings was not present; was not even -represented by an attorney. Sprague pleaded guilty and paid his nominal -fine, which MacFarland took with a quiet smile. - -“I don’t know what you did to that black-faced bully, Mr. Sprague, but -I hope you got your money’s worth,” he said. “Every time he turns up -here in Brewster he proves himself an undesirable citizen, right from -the word go.” - -“Tough, is he?” queried Sprague. - -“As tough as they make them. I wonder he didn’t try to get square with -you with a gun. That would be more like him.” - -“Perhaps he will, later on,” suggested the fined one, with a -good-natured smile; after which he went across to his laboratory and -was invisible for the remainder of the morning. - -Just before noon Stillings dropped into the laboratory office. He found -the chemist working among his retorts and test-tubes. - -“I fell in to give you a pointer,” was the attorney’s excuse for the -intrusion. “Jennings is in town. He came over on the ten-o’clock local -and went straight to _The Times-Record_ office.” - -Sprague grinned. “You were looking out for him, were you? Somebody got -waked up at last?” - -“Yes; the High Line people are on, all right,” was the reply. “Smith -called an emergency meeting of his directors early this morning. Two of -them are Red Desert cattle barons, and they know the Mesquite situation -like a book. What none of them can understand is the ‘why’; why the -Mesquite outfit should take ninety-nine chances in a hundred of sending -a flood down the Timanyoni when there is no money to be made by it.” - -“What action did the directors’ meeting take?” - -“Instructed me to feel Judge Watson on the question of holding things -up with an injunction. I did it, and it turned out as you intimated -it would; nothing doing. Smith asked me to borrow Maxwell’s special -officer, Arch Tarbell, suggesting that we ought to keep in touch with -Jennings. Archer was going over to Angels on the afternoon train, but -Jennings has saved him the trouble by coming to town.” - -“Well, what next?” Sprague inquired. - -“That is just what I’d like to ask you,” was the lawyer’s frank -admission. “We’re all looking to you to set the pace. You’re the one -man with the holy gift of initiative, Mr. Sprague. You haven’t admitted -it in so many words, but I know as well as I know anything that you are -the man who started this newspaper talk.” - -“Pshaw!” said the expert, in genial raillery; “I’m only a Government -chemist, Mr. Stillings.” - -“That’s all right, too; but that isn’t why the railroad men call you -‘Scientific Sprague.’ Four times this summer you’ve dug Maxwell and his -railroad out of a hole when the rest of us didn’t know there was any -hole. What I’m most afraid of now is that Jennings will put up some -sort of a scheme to get you out of the way. He knows well enough by -this time that you are the key to his situation.” - -“I’m a tenderfoot,” said the big man, with naïve irony. “What would you -suggest?” - -“That you go to Sheriff Harding and get him to swear you in as a -special deputy. Then you can be prepared to defend yourself.” - -Sprague’s mellow laugh rumbled deep in his big body. - -“I guess I can take care of myself, if it comes to that, without -‘packing hardware,’ as Starbuck would put it,” he averred. “There won’t -be more than three or four of them to tackle me at once, will there? -But about your campaign--I have been hoping that the High Line people, -backed by public sentiment, would be able to head this thing off. I am -still hoping it. It will be altogether better if the railroad doesn’t -have to take a hand on its own account. The New Yorkers would be -sure to make capital out of it, holding the Ford-Maxwell management -up to public execration as a corporation which deliberately strangles -development propositions in its own territory.” - -“That’s a fact,” the attorney agreed. - -“Working along that line, we can afford to wait, for a little -while at least, to see how the cat is going to jump. Jennings is -over here to get into the newspaper fight himself. In Maxwell’s -demoralization tussle of two weeks ago, it was demonstrated that _The -Times-Record_ had been subsidized by the enemy. Now we shall see -Higginson and his editor jump in and take up the clubs in defence of -the Mesquite Company.” - -“I guess that is pretty good advice--to wait,” said Stillings. “But we -have an active crowd in the High Line, and its blood is up. Our people -will want to be doing something while they wait.” - -“Let them talk,” said Sprague quickly. “Tell them to resolve themselves -into committees of one to throw the big scare into the Brewster public -which depends upon the safety of the High Line dam for its own safety. -Then pick out a few good, dependable men like Smith, his old fighting -father-in-law the colonel, and Williams the engineer, who will hold -themselves in readiness to start at a moment’s notice, night or day, -for the firing line--any firing line that may happen to show up.” - -“That is more like it,” rejoined the attorney. “I’m sworn to uphold the -majesty of the law, but----” - -“But, as you remarked last night, there are extra-judicial crises now -and then which have to be met in any old way that offers. Let it rest -at that, and see me at the hotel this evening, if you can make it -convenient.” - -With the appearance on the streets of the evening edition of _The -Times-Record_, the Brewster public learned that there were two -sides to the Mesquite question. In terms of unmeasured scorn Editor -Healy attacked the narrow prejudice which would seek to place -stumbling-blocks in the way of a great enterprise designed to benefit, -not only the region locally concerned, but the entire West. - -In the course of a long and vituperative editorial, the High Line -company, the Brewster public-service corporations, and the railroad, -each came in for its share of accusation, and their joint lack of -public spirit was roundly condemned. It was pointed out that the High -Line plant, by the admission of its own officials, would be in no -danger even in the unsupposable case of the breaking of the Mesquite -dam. Also, it was urged that the penny-wise policy of the railroad in -adopting the low grade in Timanyoni Canyon was a matter of its own -risk. Was the development of the nation to be halted, it was asked, -because a niggardly railroad company was unwilling to spend a little -money in raising its grade beyond a possible danger line? - -But the sting of the editorial for Maxwell was in its tail. Healy -concluded by darkly hinting that certain of the railroad officials were -interested financially in sundry Timanyoni Park lands owned by the High -Line Company, and that they were willing to kill the prospects of the -new district for the sake of their own pockets. - -Maxwell was furiously hot about this blast in the evening paper, as -his demeanor at the dinner-table, where he spoke his mind freely to -Sprague, sufficiently proved. - -“Why, the miserable liars!” he raged. “There isn’t an official on the -Short Line from President Ford down who owns a single share of stock in -the High Line! We all did help out at first, but Ford made every man -of us turn loose the minute the dam was completed and the project was -securely on its feet. He insisted that we couldn’t afford to work for -two dividend accounts!” - -“He was quite right,” said Sprague calmly. “But that is neither here -nor there. It was Jennings’s turn at bat and he took it. Let it go, -and tell me what you hear from that good and reliable man, Disbrow, at -Angels.” - -“I had him on the wire myself, just a few minutes ago,” was the -superintendent’s answer. “He says something has stirred things up over -on the Mesquite. They’re working night shifts--began last night.” - -“Rain?” queried the expert. - -“How the devil do you manage to jump at things that way?” demanded -Maxwell, half-irritably. “Yes; there have been cloud-bursts in the -eastern foot-hills. The river rose two feet to-day.” - -“Ah? That may bring on more talk--before the stenographers are ready to -take it down. Any more items from Angels?” - -“Nothing special. The Mesquite people got half a car-load of dynamite -this morning. That shows you how careful Disbrow is; he is spotting -everything--even the common routine things.” - -“Um; dynamite, eh? What use has Jennings for so much high explosive as -that?” - -“I don’t know; uses it in excavating, I suppose. The more he uses, the -bigger his rake-off from the powder company. Where there’s a big graft, -there are always a lot of little ones.” - -Sprague ate in silence for five full minutes before he said, quite -without preliminary: “How long would it take a light special train to -run from Brewster to Angels, with a clear track and regardless orders, -Dick?” - -“I made it once in my own car in two hours and fifty-five minutes, with -two stops for water. Why?” - -“Oh, I was just curious to know. Two fifty-five, eh? And how long would -it take to get the special train ready?” - -“Fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps, on a rush order.” - -Sprague sat back and began to fold his napkin carefully in the original -creases. - -“As I have said before, I don’t want to pose as an alarmist, Maxwell; -but if I were you, I’d have that special train hooked up and ready to -pull out--and I’d keep it that way, on tap, so to speak.” - -The railroad man rose to the occasion promptly. - -“Beginning to-night?” he asked. - -“Yes, beginning to-night.” - -“Has Jennings gone back?” - -“He has. He went over on the evening train. Your man Tarbell kept cases -on him while he was here. He spent most of the day with Higginson and -Healy in _The Times-Record_ office.” - -Maxwell refused his dessert and ordered a second cup of black coffee. - -“This suspense is something fierce, Calvin,” he said, when the waiter -left them. “Have we got to sit still and do nothing?” - -“That is your part in it,” was the quiet reply. “If a party of -prominent citizens should call upon you for a special train at some odd -hour of the day or night, you want to be ready to supply it suddenly. -Aside from that, you are to keep hands off.” - -For forty-eight hours beyond this evening dinner in the Topaz café--two -days during which the railroad agent at Angels reported increased -activities at the Mesquite dam--the newspaper wrangle over the merits -and demerits of the irrigation project in the edge of the Red Desert -went on with growing acrimony on both sides. But by the end of the -second day it was apparent that _The Tribune_ had public sentiment -with it almost unanimously. - -It was also on this second day that further bitterness was engendered -by a street report that Judge Watson had enjoined the High Line -Company from interfering in any way with the operations on the -Mesquite. This was the last straw, and public indignation found -expression that night in a monster mass meeting of protest, in -which the speakers, with J. Montague Smith to set them the example, -criticised the court sharply in free Western phrase. - -After the meeting, adopting all sorts of resolutions condemnatory -of everything in sight, adjourned--which was between nine and ten -o’clock--there was a street rumor to the effect that Judge Watson would -declare some of the speakers in contempt, and cinch them accordingly. - -Maxwell and Starbuck brought this report to Sprague, who was smoking -one of his big, black cigars on the porch of the hotel. - -“Going to institute contempt proceedings, is he?” said the expert, with -interest apparently only half-aroused. - -“Wouldn’t that jar you?” commented Starbuck. “I was telling Dick just -now that Judge Watson has about outlived his usefulness in this little -old shack town. This injunction of his is about the rawest thing that -ever came over the range.” - -“Smith is red-hot,” Maxwell put in; “hot enough to get out and scrap -somebody. And his directors are all with him.” - -Still the big-bodied expert seemed only mildly interested. - -“If anybody should happen to get mixed up legally with the Mesquite -folks on this job of theirs, it would be pretty hard to get a jury in -Brewster which would lean the way the judge does, wouldn’t it?” he -asked. - -Maxwell’s verdict was unqualified. “It would be practically -impossible.” He had found his pipe and was filling it when Sprague -pointed to the spur track at the end of the railroad building opposite. - -“Is that your special train over there, Dick?” - -“Yes. You see I’ve obeyed orders. That train has been standing there -for two days, with three shifts of men dividing up the watch in the -engine cab.” - -“And the committee of prominent citizens hasn’t yet materialized, eh? -Never mind; you’ve done your part. What is the latest from Angels?” - -“More cloud-bursts in the hills, and more activity up on the Mesquite. -Disbrow says that Jennings has been offering all sorts of big pay -to the scattered ranchmen to get them to come on the job with -scraper-teams.” - -“That’s bad,” said the chemistry man briefly; adding, “I don’t like -that.” - -Starbuck got up to stand with his back to a porch pillar. From the new -position he could look through the windows into the thronged hotel -lobby. - -“This town’s stirred up some hotter than I’ve ever seen it before,” he -drawled. “Look at that mob inside--and every blame’ man of it chewing -the rag over this water proposition.” - -“I don’t like that,” Sprague repeated, thus proving that he had -entirely missed Starbuck’s comment on the excitement. Then he sat up -suddenly. “There’s a boy just coming down from your offices, Maxwell; -it’s the night watchman’s boy, isn’t it? Run across and head him, -Starbuck; I believe that’s a telegram he has in his hand.” - -Starbuck swung himself over the railing and caught the lad before he -could disappear in the street throngs. - -“You were plumb right,” he said, when he came back to take his place on -the porch. “He did have a message; it’s for Dick. Here you are.” - -Maxwell tore the envelope across and held the telegram up to the -ceiling light. - -“Here’s news,” he announced. “It’s from our man at Angels. He says: -‘Jennings’s force disbanded, and most of it gone east on Limited. Been -shipping teams and outfit all afternoon. Too busy to wire sooner.’” The -superintendent crumpled the telegram and smote fist into palm. “Bully -for you, Sprague!” he exulted. “You pushed the right button just right! -Jennings couldn’t stand the pressure; he’s given up the job and quit!” - -There was no answering enthusiasm on the part of the big man who rose -suddenly out of his chair and reached for the telegram. Quite the -contrary, the hand which took the crumpled bit of paper was trembling a -little. - -“Dick,” he began, in his deepest chest tone, “you hike over to the -despatcher’s office on the dead run and have Connolly clear for that -special train. Don’t lose a minute! Starbuck, it’s up to you to find -Smith, Tarbell, Williams, Colonel Baldwin, and two or three more good -men whom you can trust--trust absolutely, mind you. Herd your crowd at -the station in the quickest possible time; and you, Maxwell, make it -your first business to tell the agent at Angels that there is a special -train coming over the road. Don’t tell him its destination; just say -it will leave Brewster, going east, in a few minutes. Don’t slip up on -that--it may mean a dozen human lives! Get busy, both of you!” - -After he was left alone, Sprague shouldered a path through the crowd -in the lobby and had himself lifted to his rooms. When he came down a -few minutes later he had changed his business clothes for the field -rig which he wore on his soil-collecting expeditions. He had scarcely -worked his way through the throng to the comparative freedom of the -porch when Maxwell came hurrying across from the railroad building. - -“Bad luck,” said the superintendent, with brittle emphasis. “There’s a -freight-train off the steel half-way between Corona and Timanyoni, this -side of the canyon, and the track is blocked.” - -“And we can’t get by? There is nothing on the other side of the wreck -that you could order down to meet us at the block?” - -“Nothing nearer than Angels. There is an eastbound freight held -there, loading the last of Jennings’s outfit. To order the engine -back from that would add at least an hour and a half to the -two-hour-and-fifty-minute running schedule I gave you the other day.” - -Sprague swore out of a full heart, which, since he was the least -profane of men, was an accurate measure of his growing disquietude. - -“That’s on me!” he grated. “I had it all figured out to the tenth -decimal place, _and I didn’t put in the factor of chance_! Dick, -I want the biggest automobile in this town, and the one man among all -your thousands who is least afraid to drive it.” - -Maxwell was able to answer without hesitation. “The car will be Colonel -Baldwin’s big ‘six,’ with Starbuck for your reckless chauffeur. But I -doubt if you can get over the range in anything that goes on wheels.” -Then he added: “What is it, Calvin? What have you figured out?” - -Sprague ignored the anxious query and spoke only to the fact. - -“Can’t get over the range? I tell you, we’ve got to get over the range! -Good Lord! why in Heaven’s name doesn’t Starbuck hurry?” - -Starbuck had hurried. He had looked to find most, if not all, of the -men he had been told to summon, closeted in conference with Stillings, -and his guess had gone true to the mark. Only Tarbell was missing, and -him they picked up in front of _The Tribune_ office as they were -hurrying to the rendezvous in the colonel’s big touring-car. - -Maxwell saw the car as it came under the corner electrics. “There’s a -little luck, anyway!” he exclaimed. “That is the Colonel’s car, now, -and Billy is driving it.” - -“Tools and arms; half a dozen picks and shovels, and anything you can -find that will shoot,” commanded Sprague, vaulting the porch railing -to the sidewalk as easily as Starbuck had vaulted it a little while -before. “See to that part of the outfit yourself, Dick, while I’m -looking after the human end of it.” - -One minute afterward the big man was standing beside the touring-car -which had been drawn up at the town-side platform of the railroad -building. Sprague shot the emergency at the five men in the car in -bullet-like sentences. - -“Gentlemen, we’ve got to get over to the Mesquite as quick as the -Lord’ll let us. The railroad is blocked, and it’s an auto or nothing. -Maxwell says we can’t do it. I say we’ve got to do it. What do you say?” - -“I reckon we can do it,” drawled Starbuck, speaking for all. Then he -turned to Smith, who was in the tonneau. “How about the tanks, Monty?” - -“I filled them to-night, before we left the ranch,” said the High Line -treasurer. “Also, there is an extra gallon of oil aboard--we always -carry it.” - -“How about it, colonel?” Sprague demanded of the erect, white-mustached -old man in the back seat. - -“Sure!” was the quick reply. “You haven’t told us yet whether it’s a -fight or a frolic, but we’re all with you, either way, Mr. Sprague. -Hop in, and we’ll be jogging along.” - -It was at this moment that Maxwell, followed by a couple of yard men, -came up. The men were carrying the picks and shovels, which were -hastily stowed in the car, and the superintendent handed over a small -arsenal of weapons, three of them being sawed-off Winchesters. - -“I had to raid the express office,” he explained, “and I took what -I could find.” Then to Sprague, who had mounted to the seat beside -Starbuck. “Don’t you want me along?” - -“No; you can do a great deal more good right here. Listen, now, and -follow my directions to the letter. Go upstairs to the wire and get in -touch with your man at Angels. It will be your job to keep him in doubt -as to what is on the road _between his station and the lower end -of the canyon_. Lie to him if you have to; tell him a part of the -wrecked freight is on its way up the canyon, or something of that sort, -and keep him believing it as long as you possibly can. Don’t fall down -on it! Everything depends now upon the length of time you can keep some -such story as that going over the wires.” - -Starbuck had adjusted a pair of goggles to his eyes, and had his foot -on the clutch-pedal. “All set?” he asked. - -“Go!” said Sprague; and at the word the big car shot away from the -platform, rounded the end of the plaza, and bore away through a cross -street to the eastward, gathering headway until, when the city limits -were passed, its cutout exhausts were blending in a deafening roar. - -Sprague was the only member of the party who had not at some time in -the past had experience with Starbuck’s driving. But before the first -ten-mile lap on the mesa road had been covered he, too, had had his -initiation. There was a little lamp on the dash which poured its tiny -ray on the dial of the speedometer. Sprague saw the index pointer go -up to thirty-five, jump to forty, crawl steadily onward until it had -passed the forty-five and was mounting to the fifty. After that he -saw no more, for the simple reason that he was obliged to close his -unprotected eyes against the hurricane speed blast. The big man from -Washington had asked for the fastest car in Brewster and for a man who -was not afraid to drive it. He had got both. - -At the same time, alarming as the pace might seem, Starbuck was not -taking any needless chances. He knew his road, and knew also that -there were many miles of it among the mountains that would have to be -taken at slower speed. None the less, when the long mesa stretch was -covered, and the big car was making zigzags up the precipitous slopes -of Mount Cornell to reach the gap called Navajo Notch, the pace was -still terrific, and the sober-faced driver was leaning over his wheel -and pushing the motor like a true speed-maniac. - -There was an hour of this risky zigzagging, and then the pass, lying -cold and grim in the half moon-light at altitude ten thousand feet, -was reached and threaded. Following the summit-gaining came the -down-mountain rush on the eastern slope, and again Sprague closed -his eyes, confessing inwardly that the steadiest nerve may have its -limitations. With precipices shooting skyward on the right, and -plunging sheer to unknown depths on the left, and with a man at the -wheel who had apparently hypnotized himself until he had become a mere -machine driving a machine---- - -When Sprague opened his eyes the great car was once more on an even -keel and its wheels were spurning the hard red sand of the desert. In -the far distance ahead a light was twinkling, the lamp in the station -office at Angels. Sprague spoke to the iron-nerved driver at his side. - -“Hold on, Billy; can you make the remainder of the run without the -lamps?” - -Starbuck brought the big machine to a stand, and leaned over and -extinguished the lights. A little later, under Sprague’s directions, he -was making a silent circuit of the town, with the muffler in and the -engine speeded at its quietest. - -Since it was far past midnight, the better part of Angels was abed and -asleep, with lights showing only at the railroad station and in Pete -Grim’s dance-hall, where, arguing from the row of hitched horses, a -round-up of Red Desert cowboys made merry. Sprague stopped the car by a -sign to Starbuck and turned to Tarbell. - -“Get out, Archer, and make a quick run over to the station. I want to -know what’s going on in Disbrow’s office.” - -Tarbell made the reconnaissance and was back in a few minutes. - -“Disbrow is at his wire, with a man walkin’ the floor behind him; and -there’s a piebald bronc’ hitched out beyond the freight shed,” was the -brief report. - -“Who is the floor-walker?” asked Sprague. - -“I couldn’t get a fair squint at him, but he looked mightily like the -fellow I been keepin’ cases on for the last two or three days.” - -“Gentlemen, we’re in luck, for once,” Sprague said impressively. -“That’s Jennings, without doubt; and he is waiting for a wire--the -right kind of a wire--to come from Brewster. You remember what I told -Maxwell, as we were leaving? That was one time when a guess was as good -as a prophecy. Go on, Billy, and head straight for the Mesquite. And -you gentlemen back there, get your weapons ready. If there happens to -be a guard at the dam, we’ll have to rush it.” - -Singularly enough, when the short run was accomplished they found that -there was no guard. The shack camp was deserted, with all the disorder -of a hasty evacuation strewn broadcast. But in the valley itself -there was a startling change. The lake, which, three days earlier, -had reached only half-way up the earth embankment, was now lapping -within a foot of the dam top, the result of the continued storms and -cloud-bursts reported by the Brewster weather station. - -Starbuck eased the big car up to the dam head, and Williams and Tarbell -made a quick quartering of the deserted camp. “Nobody here,” the -engineer reported, when they came back to the car; and then Sprague -asked Starbuck to relight the head-lamps. - -With the acetylenes flinging their broad white beam across the -earthwork, another change was made apparent. In the centre of the dam a -square pit, plank-lined like the shaft of a mine, had been either sunk -or left in the building. Over this pit stood a three-legged hoist, with -the block-and-tackle still hanging from its apex. - -“What is that thing out there?” queried the colonel, shading his eyes -with his hand. - -“Jennings would probably tell you that it is a new kind of spillway, by -which, in case of need, the reservoir lake can be emptied,” suggested -Sprague. “But we haven’t time to investigate it just now. Our job at -the present moment is to take the law into our hands and empty this -lake, and to do it, if we can, without bringing on the catastrophe it -was designed to accomplish.” - -“Heavens!” ejaculated Colonel Baldwin. “That’s a criminal offence, -isn’t it?--and in the face of Judge Watson’s injunction, at that!” - -“It is criminal,” was the calm reply; “unless we shall find sufficient -justification for it as we go along. There is one chance in a dozen -that we may find it first. Tarbell, take this little flash-light of -mine and skip out there and look into that pit.” - -Tarbell paused scarcely a moment at the mouth of the mid-dam shaft. -“It’s filled up to within a few feet of the top with dirt,” he said, -when he returned. - -“That is what I expected. We might find another warrant for what we -are about to do, but we haven’t time to search for it. Jennings may -come back at any minute, and if he suspects anything wrong, he’ll bring -that bunch of dance-hall cowmen with him. If you’d like to hide the car -and stand aside to see what he will do when he comes----” - -“By Jove! I’m with you, injunction or no injunction!” cried Smith, and -he began to take the picks and shovels out of the car. - -“Go to it,” said the colonel; and Sprague turned to Williams. - -“Mr. Williams, you’re an engineer. Our problem is to drain this lake in -the shortest possible time in which it can be done without raising a -dangerous flood-level in the Timanyoni River. We’re under your orders.” - -Williams took the job as a dog snaps at a fly, barking out his -directions with the curt precision of a man who knew his business. -Planks were brought from the dismantled shacks to be thrust down on -the inward face of the dam as a protection, and these were weighted in -place with a make shift buttressing built out of the bags of sand which -had been used as temporary coffer-dams in the construction work. When -all was ready, a small ditch was opened across the protected end of the -dam and the water began to pour through. - -Immediately the wisdom of Williams’s precaution became evident. -Instantly the rushing stream began to eat into the loosely built dam, -threatening to turn the ditch into a gully and the gully into a chasm, -and quick work was necessary with more planks and sand-bags to check -the rapid widening of the spillway. Even at that, the ditch grew -swiftly deeper and more cavernous as the torrent emptied itself through -it, and the roar of the artificial cataract filled the air with a note -of sustained thunder. - -“Jennings’ll be deaf if he doesn’t hear this plumb down at the -railroad!” shouted Tarbell. But there was no time to consider the -consequences Jennings-wise. Every man of the six, including the -colonel, was constrained to work like mad to prevent the catastrophe -they were trying to avert. - -It was when the flood was pouring through the gap in a solid six-foot -stream that shot itself far out to fall in a thunderous deluge upon the -barren Mesquite mesa, and the planking and sand-bagging was sufficing -to hold it measurably within bounds, that Sprague took steps looking -toward a defensive battle should the need arise. Under his direction -the auto was drawn out to one side and the lamps were extinguished. -Then a hasty breastwork was made of the remaining bags of sand, and -Tarbell and Starbuck were sent out as skirmishers to keep watch on the -Angels road while the others renewed their efforts to hold the pouring -torrent within safe limits. - -A toiling half-hour, during which the spillway flood had slowly grown -in volume until it threatened to become a destroying crevasse, slipped -away, and at the end of it the two scouts came hurrying in. - -“They’re coming!” yelled Starbuck; and once again the big man from the -East took the command. - -“Down behind the sand-bags!” he shouted. “If Jennings gets near enough -to strike a match on this hill-side, we’ll all go to glory!” - -Sprague had predicted that if Jennings suspected trouble he would not -return to the dam alone. The prediction was verified when a squad -of mounted men came in view at the turn in the road leading around -the hill shoulder. The moon, declining to its setting behind the -Timanyonis, flung ghostly shadows across the valley, and the watchers -behind the sand-bag breastwork saw only the dark blot of blacker shadow -sweeping up the road. - -“Give ’em a volley over their heads!” Sprague ordered, and the three -sawed-off Winchesters barked spitefully. - -“That means war,” said the colonel, when the charging cavalcade stopped -abruptly and a dropping fusillade of revolver-shots spatted into the -sand breastwork and whined overhead. “We’re strictly in for it, now.” - -“If those fool cowpunch’s only knew what they’re fightin’ for, they’d -turn their artillery the other way,” growled Starbuck. “I reckon -they’re the ‘Lazy X’ outfit, and Cummings, their owner, is one of the -High Line directors.” - -“It’s a pity we can’t get word to them some way,” said Smith. “We’re -not out to kill anybody if we can help it.” - -“No, but they’re out to kill us,” grunted Williams, as a second shower -of bullets thudded into the breastwork and tore up the gravel on either -hand. Then: “What are they doing now?” - -The defenders of the breastwork were not left long in doubt as to -what was doing. The horsemen in front were deploying in a thin line -which rapidly bent itself into a semi-circle across the hill slope. To -let any one of these skilled marksmen gain the rear meant death for -somebody, and again Sprague gave the word of command. - -“Better kill horses than men,” he said. “We’ve got to stop that -manœuvre,” and again the Winchesters spoke, this time to deadlier -purpose. At the third volley two of the horses were down, and the -scattering line was drawing together again and galloping out of range. - -In the lull which succeeded, Williams dropped his weapon and crawled -quickly away to the edge of the spillway torrent. When he came back -there was a new note of alarm in his voice. - -“That spillway of ours is eating away the dam at the rate of a foot a -minute!” he announced. “If we can’t get to work on it again, the whole -business will go out with a rush!” - -It was a cruel dilemma, and it was quickly made worse by a new movement -on the part of the attackers. Jennings’s party was closing in again, -and flashes of red fire were appearing here and there on the hill-side -to herald a dropping hail of pistol bullets. Under cover of the -irregular firing, a man was worming his way down toward the edge of the -ravine through which the wasting torrent was rushing out upon the mesa. -It was Sprague who first saw the crawling man and divined his purpose. - -“That’s Jennings!” he exclaimed, “and if he reaches the edge of that -gully, we’re all dead men! Stop him, Starbuck! don’t kill him if you -can help it, but stop him!” - -Starbuck levelled his short rifle over the top of the breastwork and -took careful aim. The light was bad and he could scarcely see the -sights. At the trigger-pulling, those who were watching saw a little -cloud of dust and gravel spring up directly in front of the crawling -man; saw this, and heard above the roaring of the torrent his yell of -pain as he doubled up and clapped his hands to his face. - -“Good shot, Billy!” gritted the white-haired colonel. “You’ve blinded -him! Now if we could only choke those crazy range-riders off.... -Tarbell, can’t you--where’s Tarbell gone?” - -Tarbell’s place at the end of the breastwork was empty, and Smith, who -was next in the line, accounted for him. - -“Archer dropped out a minute or two ago. I think he’s trying to make a -dodge-around to get at those cow-punchers.” - -The firing had ceased for the moment, and the man who had tried to -creep down to the ravine was stumbling back up the hill. Williams -nervously thrust in his plea again. - -“I tell you, we’ve got to get to work on this thing behind us and do it -quick!” he urged. “There is still water enough in the lake to tear the -heart out of Timanyoni Canyon if it all goes at once!” - -Sprague set the temerarious example by springing to his feet, and the -others followed him. There was no answering volley from the hill-side. -On the contrary, the black blot of things animate on the slope was -melting away, and a minute later Tarbell came running back. - -“The boys have got their hunch!” he cried. “A couple of them are taking -Jennings back to Angels, and the rest of ’em’ll be here in a minute to -help us. They didn’t know what was up.” - -As one man the half-dozen flung themselves upon the task of keeping the -roaring crevasse under control; and a little later eight of the cowmen -came racing down to swell the working force. But even for the augmented -numbers, it proved to be a fiercely fought battle, with the issue -hanging perilously in the balance for a long time. - -Hour by hour they toiled, making plank bulk-heads out of the shack -lumber, piling sand-bags against the crumbling embankment, and fighting -inch by inch with the gnawing flood as the night wore away. - -And it was thus that the graying dawn found them; soaked, muddied, -gasping, and haggard with fatigue, but with the victory fairly won. The -flood was still pouring through the gap which had by now widened to the -cutting away of a full half of the dam; but the great body of water -had already passed out and there was no longer any danger. - -When the sun was just beginning to redden on the higher peaks of the -western mountains, a shout from the hill-side road broke upon the -morning stillness. A moment later Maxwell and Stillings came running to -the brink of hazard. - -Sprague stumbled up out of the crevasse chasm and pointed down to the -washed-out heart of the dam. There, piled in the bottom of what had -once been the plank-lined pit with the hoisting-tackle over it, and -laid bare now by the scouring flood, was a great pile of dynamite -stacked solidly in its shipping-boxes. And, half-buried in the sand and -detritus of the outflow, lay the iron pipe through which the firing -fuse had been carried to the gully edge Jennings had tried to reach. - -“There is the warrant for what we’ve been doing, gentlemen,” said the -big expert wearily. “Take a good look at it, all of you, so that if the -courts have anything to say about this night’s work----” - -Maxwell cut in quickly. - -“There’s nobody left to make the fight. Jennings went east from Angels -on the first train that got through. He was badly blinded, so Disbrow -says; got a fall from his horse, was the story he told. We’ll fix this -lay-out so it will stand just as it is until everybody who wants to has -seen it!” - -“You couldn’t stay away, could you?” said the white-haired colonel, -grinning up from his seat on the last of the sand-bags. “I told the -boys here you’d be turning up as soon as your railroad track was open.” - -“We’ve had a mighty anxious night,” Stillings put in. “The river is up -five feet, and we couldn’t tell what was happening over here. Great -Jonah! but you men must have had your hands full!” - -“We did,” said Smith; “but it’s all over now.” - -“All but the shouting,” said Maxwell. “But post your guards and let’s -get back to town. My car is at Angels, and we came up special. When we -left Brewster the plaza was black with people waiting for news.” - -It was on the way down the flood-swollen canyon that the chemistry -expert explained to the private-car company at the breakfast-table how -he had been able to diagnose the case of the cloud-bursters. - -“It was merely a bit of what you might call constructive reasoning,” -he said modestly. “I knew by personal investigation in the line of -my proper work--soil-testing--that there was no arable land within -reach of the Mesquite project. The other steps followed, as a matter -of course. Starbuck, here, is wondering why I risked his life and mine -to get a few photographs for _The Tribune_, but if any of you -will examine the snap-shots carefully under a magnifier, you will see -that they prove the existence of the central pit in the dam, and that -one of them shows the pipe-line through which the fuse was to run. -For the possible legal purpose I was anxious to have this evidence in -indisputable form. That’s all, I believe.” - -“Not quite all,” Maxwell broke in. “How did you know that Jennings -would be hanging over the wire at Angels while you people were making -your flying trip across the mountain in the auto?” - -Sprague laughed good-naturedly. - -“Call it a guess,” he said. “It was evident that Jennings wasn’t -anxious to kill a lot of innocent people. His inquiries about the -strength of the High Line dam proved that. It ran in my mind that he -wouldn’t touch off his earthquake until he could be reasonably sure -that the flood wouldn’t catch a train in transit in the canyon. That -would have been a little too horrible, even for him. Now you’ve got it -all, I guess.” - -“But you haven’t got yours yet,” laughed Stillings. “When this thing -gets out in Brewster the whole town will mob you and want to make you -the next mayor, or send you to Congress, or something of that sort.” - -“Not this year,” said the big man, with another mellow laugh. “And I’ll -tell you why. Just before this train reaches town it’s going to stop -and let us law-breakers get off, scatter and drop into town as best -we can without calling attention to ourselves. And to-morrow morning -you’ll read in _The Tribune_ how the Mesquite dam, weakened by the -recent storms and cloud-bursts, went out by littles during the night, -watched over and kept from going as a disastrous whole by a brave -little bunch of”--he looked around the table and winked solemnly--“by -a brave little bunch of cowboys from the ‘Lazy X.’” Then, with sudden -soberness: “Promise me that you won’t give it away, gentlemen all. It’s -the only fee I shall exact for my small part in the affair.” - -And the promise was given while the locomotive whistle was sounding for -the Brewster yard-limits, and Maxwell was pulling the air-cord for the -out-of-town stop. - - - - -VI - -The High Kibosh - - -SINCE it is a Western boast that the West does nothing by halves, the -Brewster Town and Country Club owns two houses; a handsome pink-lava -home on one of the quieter business streets of the city, and a -rambling, overgrown bungalow at the golf-links on the north shore -of the High Line reservoir lake, rechristened, in honor of Colonel -Baldwin’s pretty daughter, “Lake Corona.” - -On Saturday afternoons, which are bank holidays in the progressive -little inter-mountain city, the links at Lake Corona are well -patronized; and on a certain Saturday in early September, in the year -written down in the annals of the inter-mountain region as “the year -of the great railroad war,” one of the players was the big-muscled -athlete who figured for the Brewsterites as an expert soil-tester in -the Government service, and whose nickname in the Timanyoni country was -“Scientific Sprague.” - -Sprague’s opponent on the links on this particular Saturday afternoon -was Stillings, the railroad lawyer; and at the conclusion of the game, -which had been a rather easy walk-over for the big athlete, Stillings -offered the winner a seat in his runabout for the return to Brewster. - -“Sorry, but I can’t go with you this time, Robert,” said the -heavy-weight, when he had tipped his caddie and struggled into his -coat. “Maxwell is coming out to dinner and I promised to wait for him. -He thinks he is up for another match game with the big-leaguers.” - -Stillings paused with his hand on the dash of the runabout. “That so?” -he queried. “More piracy?” - -“Nothing actually in sight, as yet. But Dick has been getting fresh -tips from the New York head-quarters. The big-money people who want -your railroad have been keeping pretty quiet since the Mesquite fizzle; -possibly they were afraid you folks might have the evidence on them. -But now the air seems to be full of lightning again, and nobody, not -even President Ford himself, appears to know just where it is going to -strike.” - -The lawyer reached over and retarded the spark on the racing engines of -the little car. - -“It’s a queer fight,” he commented. “I never heard of anything -just like it before. Of course, we all know what it means: the -Transcontinental needs our five-hundred-odd miles of Nevada Short Line -to put in with its Jack’s Canyon branch for a short cut to the southern -coast. Ordinarily, those things are fought out on the floor of the -Stock Exchange, and the people who are operating the railroad never -know what hits them until they’re safely dead. If the big fellows want -the Short Line so bad, why the dickens don’t they go in and buy it up -decently?” - -The large man who had played such a successful game of golf winked one -eye solemnly. - -“You wouldn’t expect a Government chemist to find you the answer to any -such conundrum as that, would you?” he asked, in cheerful irony. - -“I’ll bet you know, just the same,” asserted Stillings confidently. - -“I do happen to know, Robert,” was the even-toned reply. “A financial -transaction entered into in the early summer by the Ford management--a -transaction having nothing whatever to do with the fight--makes a break -in prices absolutely necessary before the control can be acquired. -What the Ford people did was to build a solid wall of protection -around themselves without knowing it or intending to. They deposited -something like sixty per cent of the Short Line stock with a syndicate -of New York and Boston banks as collateral for a loan to be used in -double-tracking.” - -“Still, I don’t see,” objected the lawyer. - -“Don’t you? That sixty per cent of the stock--which is the -control--can’t be touched by any fireworks business on the Exchange. -The big-money people have played the market up and down with the -forty per cent which is not pooled, and nothing has happened. The -loaning banks have merely sat tight in the boat, knowing that they -held the joint control of a good paying property, and that no amount -of sky-rocketing on the Street could make any difference, any real -difference, in the value of their collateral so long as the property -itself was earning dividends.” - -“That is good as far as it goes,” said Stillings, with a frown of -perplexity. “But it doesn’t explain why the big-money crowd, or -somebody, has been turning heaven and earth upside down all summer to -wreck, not the stock, but the property itself. You know that is what -has been done. No stone has been left unturned, from demoralizing -Maxwell’s force to dynamiting tunnels and planning forty-mile -washouts. If big business wants the road, why is it trying to wreck it -physically?” - -The big man who was fond of insisting that he was first, last, and all -the time a Government chemist grinned amiably. - -“It doesn’t agree with your mentality to get beaten at golf, does it, -Robert?” he said jokingly. “It is plain enough, when you get hold -of the right end of it. Big money’s play is to throw a real scare, -not into the stockholders, but into these loaning bankers, don’t you -see? If the road’s earnings fall off and it has bad luck enough to -make these creditor-bankers really nervous about the value of their -collateral, the trick will be turned. The Ford people will immediately -be asked to make good or pay up; and there you are.” - -“Why, sure!” said the attorney, in a tone which sufficiently -emphasized his complete understanding. Then he climbed slowly into the -driving-seat of the runabout. “I don’t see why some of the rest of us -haven’t caught on long ago,” he went on. “I suppose any of us might -have had the simple facts if we had taken the trouble to dig for them.” -Then, abruptly: “You’re looking for more trouble, Sprague?” - -“Maxwell is; and so is Ford, apparently,” was the evasive reply. - -“Never mind Maxwell or Ford; you’re the man,” snapped the lawyer. - -“No, I’m not,” was the decisive denial. “It’s true, I have been -willing to help out and take a hand in standing off a few of the -attempted smashings; but that was only because Dick Maxwell is my -friend, and it suited my humor to ride my little reasoning hobby in his -behalf. I’m not a sleuth, Stillings; I’m a Government chemist, and I am -out here for the ostensible purpose of making a technical report on the -soils of this charming valley of yours. You forget that every now and -then.” - -“Pardon me, old man; I did forget it,” was the hearty apology. “Just -the same, you mustn’t throw us down while the fight is still on. -Maxwell put it about right the other day when he said that the Nevada -Short Line would have been dead and buried two months ago if it hadn’t -been for you.” - -“Nevertheless, I can’t help out this time, Stillings. That is why I am -staying here this evening--to meet Maxwell and tell him that he’ll have -to fight for his own hand if the New Yorkers come after him again.” - -“Good goodness, Sprague! what’s happened?” - -“A thing which nobody could have foreseen, and for which nobody is to -blame. At the same time, it lets me out. I’ve got to quit you.” - -The attorney adjusted the spark and throttle and cut the wheels of the -little car preparatory to the start. - -“I can’t very well argue with you--not having any grounds,” he said. -“But I hope you won’t decide finally until after you’ve had another -talk with Maxwell. Think it over between now and dinner-time, and -weigh the consequences to Dick, Sprague. If there’s another earthquake -on the way, and you throw him down, he’s a ruined man. I know what -you will say: that he is well fixed and doesn’t have to be a railroad -superintendent. That’s all right, but his job means more to him than -it might to a poor man; it’s his ambition. If there is anything I can -do----” - -The big chemistry expert shook his head. “There isn’t anything that -anybody can do, Robert,” he said soberly; and at that, Stillings eased -the clutch in and drove away. - -Two hours later Maxwell was sitting out the after-dinner interval with -his friend and classmate on the broad lake-fronting veranda of the -bungalow club-house. It was a fine night, and the Saturday evening -crowd was larger than usual. There was a dotting of canoes on the -reservoir lake, and the verandas were filling slowly as the great -dining-room emptied itself. For a time the two men had let the talk -drift into college reminiscences; but it took a more strictly personal -turn when the superintendent said: - -“Do you know, Calvin, I’ve often wondered how you came to be assigned -to this job of soil-testing--this particular job, I mean--for the -Department. It has been a sort of special providence to me; but things -don’t often happen that way, unhelped.” - -“This thing didn’t happen that way--unhelped,” was the big expert’s -quiet rejoinder. “I asked for the job.” - -“I’ve wondered if you didn’t. It was mighty good of you to maroon -yourself out here in the tall hills for the sake of helping me fight -the money pirates, Calvin.” - -Sprague was silent for a full minute before he said: “I wish I could -claim a motive as disinterested as that, Dick; but if I should, it -wouldn’t be honest. I had quite another reason for wishing to return to -the Timanyoni after my flying trip through it last July on my way back -from California. I can’t tell you what it was; it’s too idiotic for a -grown man to own up to.” - -The superintendent’s curling mustaches took a grinning uptilt, and he -laughed joyously. - -“When you talk that way you don’t need to tell me,” he chuckled. “It -was a girl.” - -“It was,” admitted the self-confessed simpleton, matching his -accuser’s grin. “Since you’ve guessed that much, I’ll tell you a little -more. I saw her first on your eastbound train, the train that took -on the sham dead man at Little Butte and afterward picked up your -office-car. You’ll remember you asked me to stay over a day or two with -you in Brewster, and I did. As a matter of fact, your persuasion wasn’t -needed. I would have stopped off anyway, because the girl stopped off.” - -“Heavens and earth!” ejaculated Maxwell, in ecstatic appreciation; “how -are the mighty fallen! Lord of love! I never expected to see the day -when Cal Sprague, the idol of the foot-ball rooters, would fall for a -pretty face just seen, as you might say, in passing! Oh, gosh!” - -“Have your laugh, you old married hyena!” grunted the late-comer in the -sentimental field. “I can’t get back at you because I didn’t happen to -be around when you were making seventeen different kinds of a donkey -of yourself over old Hiram Fairbain’s daughter--as I have no doubt you -did. But that’s neither here nor there; the young woman I’m speaking of -tagged me, and I’m It; I’ve been It ever since that first day on the -eastbound train.” - -“And you say she stopped off in Brewster?” - -“Yes.” - -“But you didn’t meet her?” - -“No. You’ve been calling me an amateur detective, Dick; I’m a fake! -That girl and the people she was with just vanished into thin air the -minute they hit the platform at the Brewster station. I lost them as -completely as if they had stepped off into space.” - -“So you came back, later, to hunt her up?” - -“I did; or to try to get some trace of her--just that.” - -“Of course, it says itself that you have found her.” - -Sprague’s mellow laugh rumbled deep in his chest. - -“Richard, I have been here seven weeks, and I found her--just three -days ago! In all my knocking around with you and Starbuck and Stillings -and the rest of you, not one man in the bunch has thought it worth his -while to tell me that there is a cottage settlement of Eastern summer -people up in the mountains on Lake Topaz. I had to blunder around and -find out for myself, as I did last Wednesday, when Starbuck took me up -to your mine on Mount Geechy.” - -“Great guns!” exclaimed the superintendent; “how in the name of -common-sense was anybody going to suspect that you needed to know? That -summer colony is as old as Brewster. But go ahead and tell me more. -I’m interested, if I don’t look it.” - -“There isn’t much to tell. I found her; met her. She is stopping with -an aunt of hers, and by chance--good luck you’d say--I have something -a little better than a speaking acquaintance with the aunt--through -some common friends in New York. There’s nothing to it, Richard. The -girl can have her pick--she has already turned down a couple of English -titles--and she isn’t going to pick any such overgrown slob of a man as -your humble. Let’s talk about something else.” - -“If I branch off, it will be into my own grief,” said Maxwell -half-reluctantly. “I had another wire from Ford this afternoon. The -big-money people are getting ready to swat us again, and Ford admits -that he can’t find out where it is to come from, or what it is to be. -If it wasn’t for the name of the thing, and what I owe Ford, I’d be -about ready to throw up my job, Calvin. I have money enough to live on, -and this business of dragging along from day to day with the feeling -that any minute you may get the knife between your ribs isn’t very -exhilarating.” - -“You say Ford can’t give you any hint of what is coming next?” - -“Not the slightest. But there is something in the wind. You know -Kinzie, the president of the Brewster National Bank? He cornered me -last night at the club and asked a lot of queer questions that didn’t -seem to have any particular bearing on anything.” - -“What kind of questions?” inquired the expert. - -“Oh, about our right-of-way through the town of Copah, and about our -outstanding floating debts, and finally about a ridiculous damage suit -that has been dragging its way through the courts.” - -Sprague sat up and relighted his fat, black cigar. - -“What about the damage suit?” he asked. - -“It’s a piker’s graft,” was the half-impatient rejoinder. “We have a -little branch line over to the bauxite mines in the western edge of -the county. The telegraph company doesn’t maintain an office, and our -agent is authorized to handle what few commercial telegrams there are. -It seems that one came for a man named Hixon, a prospector whose exact -whereabouts could not be ascertained at the moment. The message was -three days old when it was delivered, and Hixon sued for ten thousand -dollars damages; said he’d lost the sale of a mine by the delay.” - -“You are fighting the suit?” - -“Of course--it’s point-blank robbery! Stillings has had the case -postponed two or three times in the hope of wearing Hixon out. It comes -up again next week, I believe.” - -“And you say Kinzie was curious about this lawsuit?” - -“Yes. It seems that Hixon is, or has been, a customer of the bank; and -Kinzie suggested that we ought to compromise.” - -“Um,” said the big-bodied man thoughtfully. “In whose court does the -case come up?” - -“In Judge Watson’s.” - -“Has Hixon a good lawyer?” - -“He has the Kentucky colonel, suh,” laughed Maxwell; “our one original, -dyed-in-the-wool, fire-eating spellbinder from the Blue-grass. When -Colonel Bletchford gets upon his feet and turns loose, you can hear the -bird of freedom scream all the way across Timanyoni Park.” - -The big chemistry expert with the athletic slant was moving uneasily -in his chair. After a little interval of silence he said: “I can’t be -with you in any more of these little two-steps with the money trust, -Richard. I’m going back to Washington to-morrow.” - -Maxwell’s start carried him half-way out of his chair, and he dropped -his short pipe and broke the stem of it. - -“Great Scott, Calvin--don’t say that!” he implored. “You can’t throw us -down that way! Why, good Lord, man, if it hadn’t been for you and your -brains.... But, pshaw! there’s no use in talking about it; you simply -_can’t_ go and leave us hanging over the ragged edge!” - -“I can; and I guess I must,” insisted Sprague gently. “And the worst of -it is, Dick, I can’t tell you or anybody else the why. It’s just up to -me, and I’ve got it to do.” - -Maxwell’s perturbation had cleared his brain like a bucketing of cold -water. “Tell me, Calvin,” he broke out; “is the girl mixed up in it?” - -“She is,” was the brief admission. - -“Is she gone, or going--back East, I mean?” - -“N-no; not immediately, I believe.” - -Maxwell sat back in his chair and began to twist nervously at the charm -on his watch-fob. - -“I suppose I haven’t any kick coming,” he said at length. “What you -have done for me this summer couldn’t be measured in money, and I have -no right to ask you to go on giving your time and your brains on the -score of friendship.” - -“There isn’t any bigger score in this little old round world of ours, -Dick,” said the other gravely. “I’m a cold-blooded fish, and I know it. -I ought to stand by you; every decent thing in me but one urges me to -stand by you. But that one exception queers me. I hope you’ll win out; -I hope to God you’ll win out, Dick; but I can’t be the man to put the -club into your hands this time.” - -The snappy little superintendent took his defeat hard. For some further -time he used every argument he could devise to persuade Sprague to -change his mind. But at the end the big man was shaking his head -regretfully. - -“It’s no use, Richard,” he said finally. “If you were in my place, -you’d do just as I’m doing--and for the same reason. Let’s go back to -town. It’s too cheerful here to fit either one of us just now.” - -Maxwell had driven out to the club-house on the shore of Lake Corona -in his small car, and when he returned to town Sprague occupied the -mechanician’s seat beside him. It was a run of only a few miles, over -the best driving road in the county, and there was neither time nor the -occasion for much talk. - -When the car had trundled across the Timanyoni bridge and the viaduct -over the railroad tracks, Maxwell would have set Sprague down at his -hotel across the plaza from the station; but Sprague himself objected. -“You are going over to your office? I’ll go with you, if you don’t -mind. It’s my last evening, and I’m not in the humor to sit it out -alone. I won’t interfere, if you want to work,” was the way he put it. - -It was thus it happened that they climbed the stair to the second -story of the railroad building together, and together walked down the -corridor to the door of the despatcher’s room. Connolly, the fat night -despatcher, was at his glass-topped table behind the counter railing, -and when he saw the superintendent he held up a pudgy hand. - -“Benson’s been trying to get you on the wire from Copah for an hour or -more, Mr. Maxwell,” he said. “I didn’t know where to raise you.” - -“Is he on the wire now?” asked Maxwell, letting himself and his -companion through the wicket in the counter rail. - -“No; but I’ll call him for you.” Followed a sharp rattling of the key -and a few broken snippings from the sounder, and then the despatcher -got up out of his chair. “Here he is,” he said. “He wants to talk to -you, personally.” - -Maxwell took the vacated chair and key, and Connolly stood aside with -the big expert. “Seems right good to have you dropping in every now and -then, Mr. Sprague,” said the fat one. “You’d ought to belong to us out -here. We’d sure make it warm for you in the Short Line family.” - -Sprague looked the dumpling-like despatcher over in mild and altogether -friendly criticism. - -“Speaking of families: you got married yourself a little while ago, -didn’t you, Dan?” he asked. - -“You bet I did!” was the enthusiastic reply. “Sadie ain’t got done -talking yet about that set of knives and forks you sent her from -Philadelphia.” - -Again the big-muscled man was looking the despatcher over critically, -this time with a quizzical twinkle in his gray eyes. - -“Tell me how you did it, Dan,” he urged soberly. “You’re fatter than I -ever dared to be. How did you manage to make a girl believe that there -might be a man inside of a big body as well as in a medium-sized one?” - -The night despatcher laughed until his moon-like face was purple; until -the car-record clerk in the distant corner of the room looked up from -his type-writer to see if he, too, might not share the joke. - -“Gi-give me a little time,” wheezed Connolly; and he was presumably -going to tell how it had been done when Maxwell got up from the -glass-topped table and broke in. - -“Twenty-six is asking for orders, Dan,” he said; and when Connolly had -resumed his chair and his key: “That’s all, Calvin. We’ll go across to -my office, if you like.” - -It was behind the closed door of the superintendent’s room, after -Sprague had chosen the easiest of the three chairs and settled himself -for a smoke, that Maxwell said: - -“I’m going to miss you like the devil, Calvin; I’m missing you right -now.” - -Sprague blew a series of smoke rings toward the disused gas-fixture -hanging from the centre of the ceiling. - -“Something that Chief Engineer Benson has been telling you over the -wire from Copah?” he suggested. - -“Yes.” - -Another series of the smoke rings, and then: “Well, I didn’t tell you -you couldn’t talk, did I?” - -Maxwell did not haggle over the inverted terms of the permission to -talk. The necessity was too pressing. - -“Benson has struck something that he can’t account for. For a week or -more the Transcontinental people have been gathering a working camp at -the Copah end of the bridge on which their Jack’s Canyon branch crosses -the Pannikin. Nobody seems to know what they are going to do, or where -they are going to do it. At Leckhard’s suggestion, I sent Benson over -to pry around a little.” - -“And he hasn’t found out what the T-C. folks have in mind?” - -“No, he hasn’t. But it is plainly some sort of a track-building job. He -says they have a hundred or more scraper-teams in camp, a train-load of -new steel, and forty car-loads of cross-ties. And this afternoon they -brought down a mechanical rail-layer--a machine much used nowadays for -rushing a job of track-laying.” - -The big guest smoked reflectively for a full minute or more before he -said: “No jangle with the Copah city authorities about any trackage -rights in the town, or street crossings, or anything of that sort?” - -“Not that I have ever heard of. The T-C. has its own Copah yard, and -has a switching connection with the Pacific Southwestern yard tracks; -though, naturally, there is little exchange of business between the two -competitive systems.” - -“Do they connect with you?” asked Sprague. - -“Not directly. Our yard was originally an independent lay-out, lying a -mile to the west of town. When the Short Line became a grand division -of the Pacific Southwestern, the two yards, ours and the P. S-W., were -operated as one, though they are still separate lay-outs.” - -“I see. What else does Benson say?” - -“He has been asking questions and chewing the rag with anybody who -would talk, he says; but we all know Jack. He is too downright and -bluff to be much of a detective.” - -Maxwell turned to his desk and began on the ever-present pile of -waiting work; and the big expert settled himself more deeply into his -chair and smoked on with his gaze fixed upon the ceiling gas-pendant. -After the lapse of many minutes he said: “Have you a blue-print of the -Copah yards, Dick?” - -Maxwell rose and went to a filing-case in the corner of the office. -After a little search he found the required blue-print and gave it to -Sprague, explaining the locations and the relative positions of the -three railroad yards. The expert studied the map thoughtfully, even -going so far as to scrutinize the fine lettering on it with the help of -a small pocket magnifying-glass. - -“And right over here by the river is where you say the new camp has -been pitched?” he asked, indicating the spot with the handle of the -magnifier. - -“Yes; Benson says it’s at the south end of the bridge, and just west of -the T-C. bridge siding.” - -Sprague looked up quickly. “Did Benson say they had an electric-light -outfit for night work?” - -“Why, no; I don’t remember that he did.” - -“Go and ask him,” said Sprague shortly; and the superintendent, who had -learned to take the expert’s suggestions without question, left the -office to do it. - -He was back in a few minutes, with the light of a newly kindled -excitement in his eyes. - -“By Jove, Calvin, you’re a wizard!” he exclaimed. “Your guess is -better than another man’s eyesight. They’ve not only got the light -outfit--they’ve strung it up and gone to work! Benson says they are -laying a track out across the valley of the Pannikin like this,” and -he traced a curving line on the blue-print, which Sprague was still -holding spread out on his knees. - -Sprague nodded slowly. “That is move Number One,” he said. “Dick, -you’re in for a fight to a finish, this time. They’ve got you foul in -some way, and they are so sure of it that they are already beginning to -take possession. Don’t you see what this new track means?” - -“No, I don’t,” Maxwell confessed, with a frown of perplexity. - -“You will see before to-morrow night. Pull yourself together, old man, -and do a little clear-headed reasoning. Why are these people starting -out to build a railroad at ten o’clock Saturday night? Surely you’ve -had experience enough in crossing fights to know what that means!” - -Maxwell straightened up and swore out of a full heart. - -“You mean that they are going to cut a crossing through the -Southwestern main line, and do it on Sunday, when our people can’t stop -them with a court injunction?” - -“You’ve surrounded at least half of it,” said the expert. “The other -half will come later. If I wasn’t going away to-morrow----” - -Maxwell walked to the window and stared across at the flaming arc light -hanging in front of the Hotel Topaz on the opposite side of the plaza. -When he turned again, Sprague had rolled the blue-print into a tube and -was laying it on the desk. - -“Calvin, you’ve had time to think it over,” said the man at the window. -“You haven’t made it very plain for me, but I can understand that it’s -friendship against--against the girl. I’m human enough to know what -that means, but----” - -Sprague was holding up one of his big square-fingered hands in protest. - -“I have been thinking it over, Dick,” he admitted gently. “I’ll -stay--for the line-up, anyway. But it’s only fair to warn you that -I may drop out at any minute; perhaps when the game is going dead -against you. Now we’ll get action. You go back to the wire and keep -in touch with Benson. We want to know at the earliest possible moment -exactly what it is that the T-C. people are trying to do. While you’re -wiring, I’ll go out and try to find Stillings.” - -This was the situation at ten o’clock on Saturday night. At the -nine-o’clock Sunday morning breakfast in the Topaz café, when Maxwell, -hollow-eyed and haggard from his night’s vigil at the wires, next -had speech with Sprague, the news from the seat of war at Copah was -sufficiently exciting. - -As Maxwell had predicted, the Transcontinental track-layers had built -up to the Southwestern main line, and had finally succeeded in cutting -a crossing through it, though not without a fight. The Southwestern -force, with Leckhard, the division superintendent, at its head, had -resisted as it could. Since it was past midnight, with no hope of -obtaining legal help until Monday morning, Leckhard had “spotted” a -locomotive on the crossing, and when the men in charge of it were -overborne by numbers, the engine had been derailed and “killed” before -it was abandoned. - -The stubborn resistance had purchased nothing more than a short delay. -The marauders had a wrecking-crane as part of their equipment; and half -an hour after its abandonment the derailed Southwestern engine had -been toppled over into the ditch, and the track-layers were at work -installing the crossing frogs. - -“And after that?” queried Sprague, when Maxwell had told of the losing -fight at the main line crossing. - -“After that they went on building across the valley and heading for the -western end of our yard. At the last report, which came about eight -o’clock, they had less than a mile of steel to lay before they would -be on our right-of-way. Benson is crazy. He is yelling at me now to -petition the governor for the militia.” - -“You haven’t done anything?” - -“There isn’t anything to do. They are on neutral ground, now, and will -be until they reach our right-of-way--if that is what they are heading -for. We have no manner of right to interfere with them until they -become actual trespassers; and as for that, no physical force we could -muster would stop them. Benson says there are between four and five -hundred men in that track gang, and many of them are armed.” - -Sprague nodded. “It is a fight to a finish, as I told you last night. -And they have the advantage because we don’t know yet where or how they -are going to hit us. Have you communicated with Ford?” - -“I have tried to; but I don’t get any reply.” - -“Tally!” said the big man on the opposite side of the table. “I’ve been -having the same kind of bad luck. I can’t locate Stillings.” - -“Did you try his house?” - -“I did that first. His family is out of town, and he has been stopping -at the club. But nobody there seems to know anything about him. A -little after midnight I found your division detective, young Tarbell, -and put him on the job. We’re needing Stillings, and needing him badly.” - -“Tarbell hasn’t reported back yet?” - -“Not yet; it is beginning to look as if he had dropped out, too. But -the day is still young. You’d better go upstairs and get a little -sleep. I’ll stay on deck and call you if you are needed.” - -Maxwell had finished his simple breakfast and he took the good advice. -It was nine hours later, and the electrics were twinkling yellow in the -sunset pinks and grays flooding the quiet Sunday evening streets and -the railroad plaza, when he came down and found Sprague just ready to -go in to dinner. - -“News!” demanded the superintendent eagerly. “I had no idea of wasting -the day this way.” - -Sprague made him wait until they were seated at a table for two in the -corner of the café. - -“The Copah fight is over, and the T-C. people have broken into your -yards with their new track,” the expert announced briefly. “Benson had -to give up and go to bed about noon, but Leckhard has kept us posted. -The track is in, and frogged to a connection with your main line; -and the entire attacking force has camped down at the two points of -trespass; presumably to keep you and Leckhard from interfering and -tearing up their job. Move Number One, whatever it may mean, is a move -accomplished.” - -“I can’t understand; I can’t begin to understand!” said Maxwell, in -despair. And then: “No word yet from Ford?” - -“No; and what is more to the point, there is none from Stillings--nor -from Tarbell. I’m beginning to think that this is a bigger game -than any we’ve played yet, Dick. I dug up Editor Kendall, of _The -Tribune_, this afternoon, and had a little heart-to-heart talk with -him. There is big trouble of some sort in the air; he has smelled it, -but he can’t tell what it is. He has his young men out everywhere, ‘on -suspicion,’ and he has promised to keep in touch with us up to the time -his paper goes to press.” - -“That ought to help us to get at the facts,” said the superintendent. -“Kendall is our friend, and he has some mighty keen young fellows on -his staff. By the way, there’s one of them now--just coming in at the -door. He’s looking for somebody, too.” - -The young incomer was not long in finding his man. With a nod to the -head-waiter, he came across to Sprague’s table. “A note for you, Mr. -Sprague--from Mr. Kendall,” he said. “There’s no answer, I believe,” -and he went on to another table and began to chat with two other young -men, strangers to Maxwell, who had come in on the evening train. - -Sprague glanced at his note and passed it across the table. Maxwell -read it and found that it merely added to the mysteries without -offering anything in the way of enlightenment. - - “Dear Sprague: - - “Have followed your suggestion, and our young men have spotted at - least a score of the strangers at the different hotels. Nobody - seems to know any of them, and they won’t talk. You will find a - list of names, copied from the hotel registers, on enclosed slip. - It has occurred to me that Maxwell might know some of them, if your - suspicions are well founded. - - “Kendall.” - -Maxwell frowned over the list for a moment before handing it back. - -“A few of them are familiar,” he said. “Tom Carmody is a division -superintendent on the west end of the T-C., and this man Hunniwell -used to be in their legal department. Vance Jackson is, or used to be, -Carmody’s chief despatcher; and--why, say! this is a T-C. crowd; here’s -Andy Cochran, their Canyon Division trainmaster.” - -“Any more?” asked Sprague quietly. - -“No; the other names are all strange to me.” - -Sprague took the list and pointed with a square-ended forefinger to one -of the names. - -“This man Dimmock; you don’t know him?” he queried. - -“No.” - -“Well, I don’t know him, either; but I happen to know something about -him. Two years ago I was doing a little soil work down in Oklahoma. It -was during the time they were having the scrap with the oil companies. -Mr. Dimmock was there, ostensibly as an independent capitalist from the -East looking for bargains in oil-wells, but really as a representative -of the trust.” - -“Is this the same man?” - -The expert held his fork pointing diagonally across his plate. “Follow -the line of this fork,” he directed in low tones, “and you’ll see -him--at the farther table by the door.” - -Maxwell looked and saw a generously built, smooth-shaven, cold-featured -man who looked like big money, dining at a table alone. The big-money -look was not obtrusive; but it was sufficiently apparent in the city -cut of the Sunday broadcloth, in the spotless linen, and not less in -the attitude of the obsequious waiter who hovered around the great -man’s chair. - -“I took the trouble to look up Mr. Dimmock in the Oklahoma period,” -Sprague went on. “I found that he was pretty well known in New York -as the right hand of a certain great money lord whose name we needn’t -mention here. That being the case, it is hardly necessary to add that -his presence in Brewster at this particular crisis is a bit ominous.” - -“Have you told Kendall this about Dimmock?” asked the superintendent. - -“No; but he’ll be pretty sure to trace the gentleman for himself. Where -a question of pure news is involved, Kendall is apt to be found running -well ahead of the field.” - -“But that doesn’t help us out any,” Maxwell objected. - -“No. We seem to be forced to await developments; and that, Richard, is -always a mark of the losing side. I wish to goodness Stillings would -turn up.” - -“It’s odd about Bob. He doesn’t often drop out without leaving a trail -behind him. Have you finished? Then let’s go over to the office and see -if there is any further word from Benson or Leckhard.” - -It was when they were leaving the dining-room together that they came -upon Tarbell, the ex-terror of Montana cattle thieves. The young man -was way-worn and dusty, and his eyes were red for want of sleep. -Sprague’s question was shot-like. - -“You’ve found him, Archer?” - -“Yep; as good as,” was the short rejoinder. - -“Turn it loose,” commanded Sprague. - -“He’s at the bottom of an old prospect hole up on Mount Baldwin; him -and Mr. Maxwell’s brother-in-law, Billy Starbuck. I had to come back to -town to get a rope to pull ’em out.” - -“What?” said Maxwell. “How did they get there?” - -The young special deputy shook his head. - -“I don’t know the whys an’ wherefores any more ’n a goat,” he said -simply. “I got onto it through the barkeep’ at the road-house out on -the Topaz pike. He said a bunch o’ fellas came along in an auto late -last night and stopped for drinks. They come in two at a time, and two -of ’em didn’t come in at all. Just as they was startin’ off, there was -a scrap o’ some sort in the auto, and the barkeep’, who was lookin’ out -o’ the window, swore to me he got a glimpse o’ Mr. Stillings. I found -the auto tracks and followed ’em. They left the road this side o’ the -lake, crossed the Gloria on the bridge, and shoved that machine up an -old wood trail on Baldwin.” - -“Well, go on,” said Maxwell, impatiently. - -“I found where they’d stopped and took Mr. Stillings and Billy out o’ -the car; and it sure looked as if there’d been another scrap, the way -the bushes was tore up. About a quarter back from the trail I found the -hole. Starbuck hollered up at me when I peeked in. I couldn’t see ’em -none, but Billy he said they was both there, and wasn’t hurt none to -speak of--only in their feelin’s. He told me to chase back and get a -rope.” - -Maxwell looked at his watch. “How deep is this hole, Archer?” - -“’Bout a hundred foot, or maybe more.” - -“We’ll get a car and go after them,” was the superintendent’s instant -decision. “You say this was last night; have they had anything to eat?” - -“Yep; Billy said a basket o’ grub had been lowered down to ’em a little -spell after they was chucked in.” - -“All right. Go over to the shops and get a coil of rope out of the -wrecking-car, and I’ll get an auto. Want to go along, Calvin?” - -“Sure,” was the prompt reply. - -Maxwell, being a reasonably wealthy mine owner, as well as the -superintendent of the railroad, kept two cars; a runabout and a big -touring-machine which, in the absence of his family, were both housed -in a down-town garage. In the big car the twenty-mile drive over the -Topaz Lake pike was quickly made. - -Just before they came to the bridge over the Gloria, they passed an -auto with two men in it going toward town. Oddly enough, as it seemed, -the in-bound car gave them a wide berth, steering almost into the ditch -at the passing, and speeding up to a racing clip as soon as the ditched -machine had been yanked back into the roadway. Tarbell, who was -driving the Maxwell car, stopped, jumped out, and examined the tracks -of the other car by the help of a lighted match. - -“That’s them,” he said laconically, when he resumed the steering-wheel. -“That was the same car. It’s got a set o’ them new-fangled tires with -creepers on ’em.” - -“Hurry!” snapped Maxwell. “We don’t know what they’ve been doing to -Stillings and Billy, this time.” - -Happily they soon found that the evening visit of the two unknown -men to the abandoned prospect shaft had been charitable rather than -malevolent. Stillings, who was the first of the two captives to be -hauled out of the dark pit on the mountain side, told them that another -basket of food had just been lowered by a string into the shaft. And -when Starbuck came up he brought the basket with him. - -Singularly enough, the two rescued ones had no explanation to offer; -or, at least, none that served to explain anything. It transpired that -they had dined together in the town house of the club the evening -before, and had afterward gone to the theatre together. After the play -they had taken a taxi to go to Stillings’s house in the suburbs to -sleep. An auto had followed them, and when they had dismissed the taxi -they had been set upon by a number of masked men who tumbled out of the -pursuing car. Since they had no weapons, they were quickly overpowered, -thrown into the car, carried off to the mountains, and dumped into the -prospect hole, the rope by which they had been lowered being thrown in -after them. That was all. - -“And you don’t know what it was for?” asked Sprague, when they were -rolling evenly back to the city with Starbuck at the steering-wheel. - -“No more than you do,” was the lawyer’s answer. “Billy and I -have speculated over it all day--having no other way of amusing -ourselves--and it’s a perfectly blind trail. Billy says he knows I must -have been the one they were after, and I say he must have been the one. -You can take your choice.” - -At the club town house the two rescued ones were set down, and -Tarbell was released to go and get his well-earned rest after the -twenty-four-hour task of shadow work. - -“Get yourself in shape to go on an advisory committee with us as soon -as you can, Robert,” was Sprague’s injunction to the attorney; and then -Maxwell drove down to the railroad building, and the expert was with -him when he went up to the despatcher’s office. - -There was no more news from the Copah seat of war, two hundred miles -to the eastward, or, at most, nothing different. The huge alien -track-laying force was still guarding the crossing through the -Southwestern main line and the new junction with the Nevada Short Line -in the western yards. Leckhard reported that Benson was sleeping off -his fatigues of the previous night, and said that all was quiet on the -late battle-ground. - -“And still no word from Ford!” said Maxwell, as he and Sprague, having -put the car up at the garage, walked back to the hotel. “By and large, -Calvin, that is the most mysterious thing in the bunch. I can’t -understand it.” - -“Unless I am much mistaken, we shall all understand many things -to-morrow that we can’t appreciate to-night,” was Sprague’s prediction; -and long after Maxwell had gone back to his office to put in a make-up -period at his desk, the big-bodied man from Washington sat out on the -loggia porch of the hotel smoking in thoughtful solitude and staring -absently at the unwinking eyes of the mast-head electrics in the -railroad yard diagonally opposite. - -The Monday morning dawned bright and fair, as a vast majority of the -mornings do in the favored inter-mountain paradise known as Timanyoni -Park. Notwithstanding his long Sunday sleep, Maxwell came down late to -his breakfast, and the café waiter told him that Sprague had eaten at -his usually early hour and was gone. - -While he was waiting to be served, the superintendent glanced through -the morning _Tribune_. There was a rather exciting first-page -news story of the track-laying fight at Copah. The story was evidently -an Associated Press despatch, and was carefully non-committal in its -reference to the Transcontinental’s purpose in rushing the new trackage -through to a connection with the Nevada Short Line yards. None the -less, the impression was given that the Southwestern’s opposition to -the move had been only perfunctory and for public effect. Also, the -impression was conveyed that the Copah public, at least, believed that -there was a secret understanding between the two railroad corporations. - -Turning to the inside pages, Maxwell found no editorial comment on the -news story, and he was still wondering why Editor Kendall had missed -his chance when Stillings came in and took the chair at the end of the -table. - -“They told me I’d find you here,” said the lawyer, “and I wanted to -have a word with you before the wheels begin to go round. This is our -day in court on the Hixon damage suit, and we’ll have to fish or cut -bait this time. In all probability, we sha’n’t be able to get another -postponement, and if we let the case come to trial, it’s all off. The -jury will give Hixon his verdict, if only for the reason that he is -one man fighting a corporation. The only question is, shall I try to -compromise before it is too late?” - -“Is there any chance for a compromise?” asked Maxwell. - -“I don’t know positively. Bletchford was willing a few weeks ago, but -his figure was so high that I refused to talk to him.” - -“It’s a hold-up!” snapped the superintendent shortly. “I haven’t -changed my mind.” - -“All right,” said the attorney, rising to go. “I thought I’d give you -one last chance at it. The case is called for ten o’clock in Judge -Watson’s court. If you’re foot-loose, you might come up and see us lose -ten thousand dollars. I guess that is what it will come to.” And then, -as he was turning to go: “By the way, that was a mighty cold-blooded -thing the T-C. people did yesterday, wasn’t it? What does it mean?” - -“If Sprague hasn’t told you, I’m sure I can’t.” - -“I haven’t seen Sprague. He left a note at the office this morning, -saying he’d be around later; but he hasn’t shown up yet. Will you come -over to the court-house and see the jury sand-bag us?” - -Quite naturally, the hard-working superintendent had no notion of -wasting his forenoon in a court-room, and he said so tersely. And -beyond Stillings’s departure and the finishing of the late breakfast, -he went across to his office and plunged into the day’s tasks. - -There was an unusual quantity of the work that morning, it seemed, -and no sooner was he through with one file of referred papers than -Calmaine, the chief clerk, was ready with another. Only once during -the forenoon was the steady office grind lightened by an interruption -from the outside world. At ten o’clock Benson wired from Copah, saying -that the T-C. track-layers were at work again, carefully surfacing and -ballasting the new track as if it were to be a permanency. Also, the -chief engineer asked if any legal steps had been taken looking to the -prevention of further trespass. - -Maxwell broke the routine pace long enough to dictate to Calmaine the -reply to Benson’s asking. It stated the facts briefly. No legal steps -had as yet been taken. A full report of the intrusion had gone to the -Pacific Southwestern head-quarters in New York, and no action would be -taken until New York had spoken. - -It was a little before noon when Calmaine carried away the final files -of claim correspondence with the superintendent’s notations on them, -and Maxwell sat back in his chair and relighted his cigar, which had -gone out many times during the stressful morning. In the act the door -of the private office suddenly opened and the heavy-set, neatly groomed -gentleman whom Sprague had pointed out at the hotel dinner-table the -previous evening walked in and took the chair at the desk end, removing -his hat and wiping his brow with a handkerchief filmy enough to have -figured as the _mouchoir_ of a fine lady. - -“Mr. Maxwell, I believe?” he said, dropping a card bearing the single -line, “C. P. Dimmock,” on the desk. - -“That is my name,” returned Maxwell, bristling with a wholly -unaccountable prickling of antagonism. - -“I have come, as an officer of Judge Watson’s court, to take over your -railroad,” announced the cold-featured man calmly, and as he said it, -the telephone buzzer under Maxwell’s desk went off as though a general -fire-alarm had been sounded from the central office. - -Maxwell reached for the telephone and put the receiver to his ear. -It was Stillings who was at the other end of the wire, and he was -frantically incoherent. But out of the attorney’s coruscating -babblement the superintendent picked enough to enable him to surround -the principal fact. In the face of all precedent, in defiance of all -its legal rights, the Nevada Short Line had been practically declared -bankrupt and a receiver had been appointed. - -Notwithstanding his nerve, which was ordinarily very good, the snappy -little superintendent’s hand trembled when he replaced the ear-piece on -its hook and turned to his visitor. - -“So you’ve got us at last, have you, Mr. Dimmock?” he said, -constraining himself to speak calmly. “It was on the Hixon case, our -attorney tells me.” - -The visitor nodded blandly. - -“You should have compromised that case, Mr. Maxwell--if you will allow -me the privilege of criticising, after the fact. But we needn’t come to -blows over the purely academic question. Judge Watson has appointed me -receiver--temporary, of course--for the railroad property. I am here to -take charge in the interest of all concerned, and I am assuming that -you won’t put yourself in contempt of court by any ill-considered -resistance. Here is the court order.” And he tossed a folded paper -across to the desk. - -For the moment Maxwell was speechless. Then he slowly straightened up -and took a few packets of papers out of the desk pigeon-holes marked -“R. Maxwell, Private,” putting them into his pocket. That done, he -removed the desk and door keys from his pocket ring and laid them upon -the desk. - -“I think that is about as far as I have to go, personally,” he said, -rising and reaching for his hat. “And, of course, I have nothing to ask -for myself. But for the staff and the rank and file, Mr. Dimmock--I -hope you’re not going to make a clean sweep. We have a mighty good -working organization, and it will cause a great deal of hardship if -you take the usual course of discharging and replacing all heads of -departments.” - -The new head of all departments smiled, and in the smile much of the -cold hardness of his face disappeared. - -“That is a matter with which I shall have very little to do, Mr. -Maxwell,” he returned. “Mr. Carmody, lately in charge of the -Transcontinental’s Pacific Division, will be my operating chief, and I -am sure that you yourself, as a practical railroad man, would counsel -me to give him a free hand.” - -Maxwell took the additional bitter dose of the medicine of defeat like -a man, but he made one more attempt--an attempt to save Calmaine’s head. - -“My chief clerk,--the young man who admitted you here,--I hope you can -provide for him, Mr. Dimmock. Apart from any personal relations, I have -found him the most faithful, the most painstaking----” - -The new receiver lifted a faultlessly manicured hand in genial protest. - -“You know I couldn’t do that, Mr. Maxwell,” he objected. “Your young -man has probably been much too close to you to make it possible or -prudent. You are a rich man yourself, and you can very easily provide -for your secretary, as I make no doubt you will. Must you go? Don’t be -in a hurry. We needn’t make this a personal fight, I’m sure.” - -The ex-superintendent looked at his watch and told a lie for the sake -of keeping the peace. - -“It is my luncheon hour,” he said. “If there are any routine matters -upon which you may wish to consult me, you will find me over at the -hotel.” And he went out with his hat pulled over his eyes and his -blood boiling. To have stayed another minute would have been to risk an -explosion. - -It was a small but exceedingly fervent indignation meeting which -gathered in Attorney Stillings’s office in the Kinzie Building a little -after twelve o’clock on this day of cataclysms. When Maxwell entered, -Stillings was trying to explain to Starbuck and Sprague and Editor -Kendall--who had been hauled out of bed to lend his presence to the -conference--just how it had come about. - -As it appeared in the wrathful summing up, it had happened very easily; -so easily as to present every indication of careful prearrangement. -When the Hixon case had been called in court, Stillings had risen and -asked for a further postponement, having, as it chanced, a very good -excuse in the fact that the witness by whom he expected to prove that -Hixon’s claim of a lost mining sale was a pure invention was absent. -Instantly the Kentucky colonel counsel for the plaintiff had jumped -up, not to protest against the further delay, but to introduce his -colleague in the cause--the stranger whose name on the Hophra House -register was Mr. Peter Hunniwell. - -Before Stillings could get his breath, Hunniwell was on his feet, -making an impassioned plea for justice. Rapidly rehearsing the course -of the defendant railroad company, which he charged with maliciously -striving to defeat the ends of justice, he summed up with a still more -serious charge, namely, that the railroad was not only unwilling to -pay the just claims upon it, but was unable to do so; was, in effect, -practically bankrupt, as the thick packet of affidavits, which he here -passed up to the judge, would sufficiently prove. - -“After that,” Stillings went on, “it was _biff! bang!_ and -the fight was over. Judge Watson merely glanced through the -affidavits--which may or may not be purely faked--while Hunniwell, in -a voice like a steam calliope, was demanding that the court appoint a -receiver. It was so ridiculous, so absolutely beyond all precedent, -that it didn’t seem worth while to try to call him down. When Hunniwell -finally quit, the judge was looking over his spectacles at us in that -mild, half-vacant way of his, and saying, ‘I think your point is very -well taken. It is time that something was done to bring these defendant -corporations to a sense of their responsibilities to the plain -people. I shall appoint, as temporary receiver, Mr. C. F. Dimmock, -the appointment to take effect this day at noon.’ At noon, mind you!” -choked Stillings. “And it was at that moment half-past eleven!” - -“Of course, you tried to break in,” said Maxwell. - -“Sure! But I might as well have gone out on the court-house steps and -shouted at the scenery! Watson told me, in the same half-absent way, -that the receivership was only temporary, and that we should have ample -opportunity to show cause, if we could, why the receiver should be -discharged at the regular hearing, which he there and then set for the -twelfth of the month, naming his chambers as the place. Before I could -wedge in another word, court was adjourned and Watson was leaving the -bench.” - -Sprague was nodding slowly. - -“Now we know the meaning of the Sunday track-laying, and the sudden -influx of strangers--most of whom will doubtless turn out to be T-C. -officials and employees--and the mysterious kidnapping of the Short -Line’s attorney night before last,” he said. And then to Maxwell: “I -suppose the thing is definitely done, and you have been properly kicked -out of your office, Dick?” - -Maxwell briefed the short interview with Dimmock for the benefit of the -others. - -“Dimmock and Carmody are in charge,” he concluded, “and before night -they will have tried and executed everybody in the service whose head -sticks up far enough to give them an excuse for cutting it off. They -are going to make a clean sweep. Dimmock practically admitted it. By -this time to-morrow the Nevada Short Line will be part and parcel of -the Transcontinental System, with only T-C. men in charge.” - -“Holy Smoke!” said Kendall, and the ejaculation from him meant more -than the most frenzied outburst of the average man: and then again he -said, “_Holy Smoke!_” - -It was Starbuck, himself a small stockholder in the confiscated -railroad, who first got his feet upon the solid earth again. - -“I reckon we-all are just going to sit around and bite our thumbs and -let these hold-ups put it all over us,” he said, in his slow drawl; -adding, after the proper pause: “I don’t think!” - -Maxwell sprang out of his chair. - -“I must go to the commercial office and wire Ford!” he broke out. -“He’ll know what to do, if there is anything that can be done. -Stillings, you get in touch with our general counsel in Chicago. We’re -an interstate road, and this thing can’t be settled in a Timanyoni -county court!” - -“Hold on,” said Stillings. “That is where we’re lame. We allowed -ourselves to be sued in this cause, as we have in a good many others, -under the old corporate name--The Red Butte Western. That, as you -know, was a purely intrastate corporation. Our newer lines are only -‘extensions.’” - -“Then we can’t carry it up to the Federal courts?” gasped Maxwell. - -“We can try it, and, of course, we shall try it. But the presumptive -facts are against us. What I am hoping is that our Pacific Southwestern -backers will be able to help us make a killing and dump these pirates -at the regular hearing.” - -“Then you needn’t hope any more,” said Sprague quietly. “Apart from -the fact that they’ve put the high kibosh on you to-day, the element -of time comes in to cut the largest figure. For the stock-smashing -purpose in this particular instance, a short receivership will prove -as efficacious as a long one. You’ve had one experience with the -steam-roller to-day, and you’ll have as many more of them as may -seem necessary. It wouldn’t make any difference if you should import -a train-load of eastern lawyers; the thing’s done, and it is going -to stay done until it has accomplished the end in view--which is to -transfer the stock control of the Short Line to the T-C. Your only -chance is to strike back, and strike quickly--before the mischief is -done in New York.” - -“But how?” pleaded Stillings. “Tell us how!” - -“By proving clearly, what I presume we all accept as the undoubted -fact, that Judge Watson has been bribed.” - -True to his calling, Stillings was the first to object to so sweeping a -charge. - -“Oh, hold on!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t go so far as that. That is a -pretty serious charge, Sprague.” - -“I know it is. But when I say bribery, it doesn’t necessarily mean the -grosser form of buying with cash money. Let us say that Judge Watson -has been ‘influenced.’ If you can’t make that charge and sustain it, -you may as well call the incident closed.” - -Maxwell was leaning against the door-jamb. His eyes were fiery and his -breath was coming quickly. - -“If you say there has been crooked work, Calvin, that settles it; I -believe it. Now tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.” - -Kendall’s lean, leathery jaw was set hard, and he was furtively -watching the big expert. That a fierce struggle of some kind was going -on behind the mask of the ruddy, half-boyish face, he made no doubt. -And Sprague’s answer quickly confirmed the editor’s conclusion. - -“You don’t know what you’re asking, Dick,” said the big man slowly. - -“I do!” said Maxwell hotly. “I’m asking you to help us send a bunch -of criminals--just low-down, ordinary thieving criminals--to jail! -Sprague, if you can do it, and _won’t_ do it----” - -There was a strained silence in the shabby little law office that -seemed as if it would never be broken. Kendall turned his face away, -and Starbuck slid noiselessly out of his chair and went to stand at the -window with his back to the others. At length the reply to Maxwell’s -demand came, wrung out, as it seemed, from the very heart of reluctance. - -“It can be done. Every chain that was ever forged has its weak link. -For reasons which are purely personal to me, I’d rather be shot than -go into this thing with you. I’d refuse, if I could in common decency; -and, in any event, I may fall down on you when it comes to the pinch. -But I’ll go as far as I can. Will that do?” - -“Say it!” snapped the ex-superintendent eagerly. - -“All right. Stillings, you may come to my room in the hotel at two -o’clock, and bring Mr. David Kinzie, our downstairs bank president, -with you if you have to club him to do it. Kendall, I’m going to ask -you to make just as little as possible of this railroad grab in your -news columns for the present, taking my word for it that you shall have -the biggest story of the year if we win out. Starbuck, you’ll come over -to the hotel with me now, and I’ll give you your stunt. That’s all; the -meeting’s adjourned.” - -To say that the little inter-mountain city was stirred to the depths -by the news which quickly spread from lip to lip is putting it mildly. -In its beginnings, Brewster had been a railroad town in the strictest -sense, owing its location and its phenomenal after-growth largely to -the fostering policy of the railroad. Under Maxwell’s wise and just -management the Nevada Short Line had identified itself very closely -with the growth and prosperity of the entire inter-mountain region, -and it had stood as a shining example of a “good” corporation. To have -the popular management swept ruthlessly aside and the rule of another -company, operating under the thin mask of a receivership, set up in its -place, provoked a storm of indignant protest. - -Moreover, many of the well-to-do citizens of the Timanyoni were -stockholders in the Short Line, and upon these the blow fell as a -disaster. Prominent among these local stockholders stood the owner -of the Kinzie Building, Brewster’s one multi-millionaire and the -president of the Brewster National Bank. At precisely two o’clock David -Kinzie, gray and pale, and with his small ferret-like eyes peering -shrewdly from under the rim of the soft, gray hat which he always wore, -stepped into the Hotel Topaz elevator with Stillings. It had not been -necessary for the attorney to bludgeon him to induce him to come to the -conference with Sprague. - -What went on behind the locked door of Room 403 after the two had been -admitted was a secret that was not shared with any fourth party, though -one of Editor Kendall’s young men promptly waylaid Stillings at the -close of the conference. - -“Tell Mr. Kendall he shall have the news, and have it first, when there -is any,” was all the lawyer would say; but Connabel, the star reporter -who had done the waylaying, died hard. - -“Give me a hint, Mr. Stillings--just the barest shadow of a hint,” he -begged. “Will the case be taken to the Federal courts?” - -“Not for publication, Fred,” laughed the lawyer, who was evidently in -better spirits. Then he added: “There’s a big story in this, my boy, -and you shall have it when it’s ripe; I’ll promise you that--I’ll ask -Kendall to detail you. And that is positively all you’ll get out of me -now.” - -Fifteen minutes after the lawyer and Mr. Kinzie had left Room 403 the -door opened again, this time to admit Starbuck. - -“Well?” said the big-bodied expert, when Maxwell’s brother-in-law had -taken the chair recently vacated by the banker. - -“The judge is sick, or playing sick,” was the answer. “Doc Mangum has -just gone out to the house, and the servants have their orders to admit -nobody.” - -“What is the nature of his sickness? Does anybody know that?” - -“Oh, yes; it’s heart trouble and too much altitude. He’s had it before.” - -Sprague’s eyes narrowed and his big hands closed in a vice-like grip on -the arms of his chair. - -“Billy, does it occur to you that this is a most opportune time for him -to be taken sick again? What do they do for patients with heart trouble -in this country?” - -“Order ’em down to a lower altitude,” said the mine owner. - -“Exactly. And we shall find that this is what Doctor Mangum will advise -in the present case. When he does so, Judge Watson will go.” - -Starbuck was deftly rolling a cigarette of dry tobacco. “And then -what?” he queried. - -“Then the regular hearing, which is set for the twelfth of the month, -can’t be held, and the temporary receivership will hold over until it -is either confirmed or set aside by the higher courts. In the meantime -the delay will have accomplished its purpose. The New York bank pool of -the stock will be broken, the T-C. people will buy it in, and the nail -will be driven and clinched.” - -Starbuck winked gravely. - -“You’re not going to let Judge Watson get out of town,” he predicted. -“I can ride up the trail that far without falling off.” - -“No,” said Sprague, “we are not going to let him get away until we are -through with him. Did you make the other arrangement I spoke of?” - -“I sure did. If anybody’s fool enough to let the cat out o’ the bag, -we’ll get the cat. Tarbell’s on that part of the job.” - -Sprague went to the wardrobe at the other end of the room and got out -his hat and a light top-coat. - -“Yes, we’ll get the cat, Billy. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we -may get the kitten, too. If that should happen, your Uncle Calvin might -fly the track. Let’s go. I have an appointment to meet Judge Walsh, of -the United States District Court, at half-past three, and I’m going to -ask you to borrow Maxwell’s car and drive me out to the judge’s house.” - -Before nightfall of the Monday it became plainly evident that the new -management of the Short Line had climbed fairly into the executive -saddle and was making due preparations to stay there. As Maxwell had -prophesied, Receiver Dimmock made a clean sweep, and before the first -through train came in over the new routing a score of minor department -heads had been let out and their places filled by T-C. men. Even the -train-despatchers were discharged; and after dinner Maxwell held a -“consolation” meeting in the hotel club-rooms with his fired staff, and -listened patiently to the bad language which the wholesale hardship -evoked. - -To one and all of the losers he said the same thing, however; they were -to sit tight and say nothing for the present. It was a long lane that -had no turning, and the next turn in the Short Line lane might not be -very far distant. - -“Just one thing, Mr. Maxwell,” Connolly, the fat despatcher, put in, -as the meeting was about to break up. “If you’ll tell us that Mr. -Scientific Sprague is with us I guess we’ll all sleep better to-night.” - -“He is,” said Maxwell. “That’s all for the present. Just sit tight and -don’t talk. Go home and take your lay-off. If we win out, you’re all -under pay, just the same as if you were on the job.” - -It was late that night, after Maxwell had gone to his room, that the -long-delayed word came from New York. Maxwell read the telegram from -President Ford, and, late as it was, took it immediately to Sprague’s -room, which was on the floor below. The expert got out of bed to admit -him, and read the few type-written lines thoughtfully. - -“He puts it up to you good and hard, doesn’t he?” was his comment. -“But that is about what I expected. He is up to his neck in the fight -to keep those lending bankers from dumping the majority stock and -running around in circles. Go to the wire and tell him to keep a stiff -upper lip; that you’re not dead yet. Also, you might add that Kinzie’s -backing him with those bankers.” - -“By Jove!” said Maxwell. “Was that what you wanted Kinzie for to-day?” - -“It was one of the things. Get your message in so that Ford will have -it in the morning. Good-night.” - -With the opening of the second day the Brewster excitement had died -down to some extent, and the new railroad routine was getting itself -shaken into the working rut. On every hand it was evident that the -coup had been carefully planned long in advance. Almost without a -break the through service was established over the new routing, and -a hard-and-fast law was laid down for the Short Line rank and file -employees, the vast majority of whom were retained under the -receivership. The law briefly exacted loyalty to the new management. -There would be no more removals except for cause; but anything less -than a hearty acceptance of the court order would be considered -sufficient cause for prompt dismissal. - -Copies of the receiver’s circulars and general orders found their way -quickly to Maxwell, and the firm, strong hand of authority appeared in -every line of them. How Sprague would go about it to break down the -wall of possession which every hour was building higher and stronger, -was a puzzle as yet unsolved; and it was not until the forenoon of the -Wednesday that the various burrowings which the expert had set afoot -began to yield results. - -Tarbell brought the first of the results to the lobby of the Topaz at -eleven o’clock on this third day in the shape of a note from Banker -Kinzie. Hixon, the suing bauxite miner, had received his ten thousand -dollars from somebody, and had deposited it in the bank. - -Sprague passed the note to Maxwell, who came in just as Tarbell was -leaving. - -“That’s good news, in a way,” said the expert. “It tells us that the -paymaster has begun to get busy. Any further word from Starbuck?” - -“I saw him about half an hour ago. He says that Judge Watson’s -condition remains the same, and Doctor Mangum makes no secret of the -fact that he has ordered him to a lower altitude. I had another message -from Ford this morning. He says we are dying by inches at the New York -end, and the final smash may come at any minute.” - -“We’ve got to have a little time,” was the quiet rejoinder. “The trap -is baited and set, Dick, but we can’t very well spring it ourselves. -Any word from Mr. Dimmock?” - -“Not to me, no.” - -Sprague’s smile was mirthless. “I haven’t escaped so easily,” he -asserted. “Mr. Dimmock came over to my rooms this morning after -breakfast and read me a carefully expurgated edition of the riot act. -Translated into plain English, what he said was to the effect that -my Government job wouldn’t be worth much to me if I meddled in this -railroad jangle.” - -“Then he knows you?” - -“He knows of two or three things that I have done in the reasoning -line, and--well, I’m inclined to think that he is a little nervous -about something. He went so far as to hint that he had reason to -believe that his mail had been tampered with.” - -“What? He didn’t charge you with anything like that, did he?” demanded -Maxwell, in generous indignation. - -“Oh, no; not personally, of course. He merely intimated that, as an -officer of the court, he wouldn’t stand for any interference.” - -Maxwell was silent for a time. Then he said: “What are you waiting for, -Calvin?--more evidence?” - -“No; I’m waiting for the click of the trap, and a word from the man who -is watching it.” - -“Will the trap be sprung?” - -“It will. Twice since yesterday there have been nibbles at the bait, -and both times the nibbler has been afraid.” - -“Watson, you mean?” - -“Yes.” - -“What is he afraid of?” - -“A man with heart trouble is afraid of many things.” - -Maxwell put an unlighted cigar in his mouth and began to chew on it -absently. - -“Dimmock’s daughter is here. Did you know that?” - -The big-bodied chemistry expert was staring fixedly at the revolving -street door which was whirling slowly to admit a group of passengers -from the lately arrived Red Butte accommodation. - -“I didn’t know that he had a daughter; or rather I do know that he -hasn’t one. He was married only three or four years ago,” he returned -half-absently. - -“That’s where you’re off wrong,” retorted the railroad man. “He -certainly has one, and she is here; she was at breakfast with him -when I came down this morning. She is so distractingly pretty that -I couldn’t believe she was the daughter of that hard-featured piece -of financial machinery which is running our railroad. So I asked the -head-waiter. He said she was Mr. Dimmock’s daughter.” - -“It’s a mistake,” insisted Sprague. Then he changed the subject -abruptly, rising and buttoning his coat. “I have an appointment that -I’ve got to keep, and I may not get away for a couple of hours. Meet me -here for a one o’clock luncheon. If I make the point I’m going to try -to make, you’ll be needed.” - -When he was left alone, Maxwell did his best to kill time easily and -to possess his soul in patience. The inaction of the past two days had -been a keen agony, unrelieved by any glimpse into the mysterious depths -in which Sprague, after his usual fashion, was groping alone. - -Was it possible that Sprague could reason out a way of escape for the -captured Short Line? For the hundredth time Maxwell went over the -well-intrenched position of the enemy, searching vainly for the weak -point in the lines which had been so swiftly and surely drawn about the -confiscated property. Every legal requirement had been astutely met, -and the law itself seemed to bar the way to any attempt at recovery. -True, Judge Watson had grossly misused the authority given him by his -high office, but the equity of his act could be questioned only in the -courts; questioned, and set aside, it might be, but too late to save -the bewildered and panic-stricken stockholders. - -Lighting the dry cigar, Maxwell got up to stroll to the clerk’s -desk. The register lay open on the counter, and he absently read the -later signatures. Among them there was a woman’s name, written in a -firm, bold hand, and lacking the identifying “Miss” or “Mrs.” “Diana -Carswell” was the name, and in the place-column was written, “New York.” - -Maxwell’s teeth met in the centre of the newly lighted cigar when he -saw the signature. He did not know Miss Carswell, truly, but all the -world knew of her, and the masculine half of it, at least, was wont -to wax eloquent over her beauty, her accomplishments, and her vast -wealth. Maxwell remembered vaguely of hearing that her father was -dead, and that the Carswell many-millions had been left to the mother -and daughter; also that Miss Carswell was the niece of a still larger -fortune--namely, that of the great captain of finance whom he and Ford -had all along credited with the planning of the raids made on the -Nevada Short Line. - -Here was food for reflection, plenty of it. What was Miss Diana -Carswell doing in Brewster, which was as far apart from her world as if -it had been the smallest village on an alien planet? Curiously Maxwell -scanned the register for other names which might answer the query. -There were none. Miss Carswell was alone, or at least she was not -accompanied by any other New Yorkers. It was another mystery, and the -ex-superintendent was growing sensitive in his mystery nerve. Possibly -Sprague---- - -Sprague came in a few minutes before one o’clock, and there was a grim -set to his big jaw that Maxwell had seen there more than once on the -foot-ball field when the game was desperate. - -“We’ll eat first,” was the incomer’s crisp dictum. “Shall we go in now?” - -Together they went to the café, taking their accustomed table in the -far corner of the many-pillared room. At the serving of the bouillon, -Maxwell broke out. - -“Up to a certain point, Calvin, I can blunder along in the dark with my -eyes shut, and do it more or less cheerfully. But past that point----” - -“I know; it has been rather hard on you, Dick. But the suspense is -nearly over. At two o’clock we are due in Judge Walsh’s chambers in the -Federal Building, and you will then learn all you need to know--and -possibly a good bit more. You’ll have to forgive me for fogging you up -as I went along. I guess that is part of the detective slant in me; to -want to go my own way, and to go it alone. The minute I begin to talk -over the reasoning process with somebody else I begin to lose the keen -sense of values. Writer people have told me that the same thing is true -of plotting and novelling.” - -Maxwell smiled grimly. “Speaking of novel plots, I hit upon the start -for a good one this forenoon--just after you went away. I was glancing -over the hotel register and I saw a name there that was full of all -sorts of mysteries and plotting suggestions.” - -“Whose name?” queried the expert. - -“I’m going to devil you for a while now, and let you find out for -yourself,” laughed the railroad man. “I don’t know the owner of the -name, and I don’t suppose you do; but I’ll bet a piebald pinto worth -fifty dollars that, when you see what I saw, you’ll sit up and take -notice and do a little stunt of wondering that will make mine look like -a cheap imitation.” - -The big man grinned good-naturedly. - -“Rub it in,” he said. “I don’t wonder that you are getting a bit -collar-sore. But don’t forget to eat. Two o’clock is the time, you -know. And, by the way, I hope you haven’t failed to keep in touch with -the various members of your staff--the men whom Dimmock was in such an -indecent hurry to discharge. We may need their help a little later.” - -Maxwell told circumstantially what had been done, and from that the -table-talk slipped easily into a discussion of human loyalty in the -abstract, and so continued until the waiter brought the cigars. Sprague -was looking at his watch as they made their way among the well-filled -tables toward the door, and it was in the midst of a sentence pointing -to the need for haste to keep the two o’clock appointment that he found -Maxwell halting him. - -Now it may say itself that a man may be a very Solon among reasoners -and a modern Vidocq in the fine art of unravelling mysteries, without -in the least approaching the type which is so aptly described by the -slang phrase, “Johnnie-on-the-spot.” When Sprague dropped his watch -back into its pocket he found himself halted beside a table at which -were seated the cold-featured, accurately groomed chief raider of -the captured railroad, and a young woman whose radiant beauty was -bedazzling more eyes than those of the interested on-lookers at the -surrounding tables. - -Sprague looked, lost himself, and then came slowly back to earth in the -realization that Dimmock was speaking. - -“Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell,” he was saying: “I wanted you to meet my -daughter. Diana, this is Mr. Richard Maxwell, whose wife is one of the -Fairbairn girls, you know, and Mr. Maxwell’s friend, Mr. Sprague, of -the Department of Agriculture.” - -It was the young woman herself who broke in. - -“Oh, yes; Mr. Sprague and I have met before; haven’t we, Mr. Sprague?” -with a mocking smile for Sprague’s benefit. And then: “We’ve been -missing you at Topaz Tepees. Have you been finding it too far to ride?” - -What the athletic chemistry expert managed to stammer out in reply, -what he went on saying to Miss Carswell during the fraction of a minute -or so that Dimmock was holding Maxwell in talk, he could not remember a -single second after the swinging together of the glass doors which shut -them out of the dining-room. That was because the astounding discovery -was still crippling him to blot out all the intermediate details. - -But one large fact stood clear in the confusing medley. Clutching -Maxwell’s arm he shoved him headlong into the near-by writing-room, -which was opportunely deserted. - -“Richard, I’m out of it!” he gasped hoarsely. “Dimmock knew what card -to play, and he has played it. My Lord! Why didn’t I guess that the -Mrs. Carswell he married four years ago was Diana’s mother? I didn’t -guess it; it never entered my mind! I knew Diana was a niece of the -chief wrecker--the man we’ve been after all summer; I found that out -last week, and that was why I told you I couldn’t stay with you. And -now: oh, dammit, dammit, _dammit_!” - -“Take it easy, old man,” said Maxwell soothingly; “and remember that as -yet I’m only groping around the edges. What is it that Dimmock has done -to you?” - -“Heavens and earth! don’t you see? For Diana’s sake I’ve monkeyed and -schemed and side-stepped on this receivership business until I’ve got -it in shape to pull you out without pulling her uncle in. But to do -that, I’ve put Dimmock, her step-father, so deep in the hole that a -yoke of oxen couldn’t haul him out! He knows it, too; and that was the -reason for that bit of by-play just now at the luncheon-table. He was -saying to me in just so many words, ‘Now you know who you’re hitting; -go ahead, if you dare!’” - -“And, naturally, since Miss Carswell is the one altogether lovely, you -don’t dare. I can’t blame you, Calvin. Drop it, and we’ll do the best -we can without you.” - -Sprague was walking the floor of the little writing-room with his big -hands jammed deep in the pockets of his short business coat. Suddenly -he stopped and smacked a huge fist into a hollowed palm. - -“By George, Dick, we’ll do it yet!” he broke out. “I’ll beat him at -his own game--come on!” And again seizing the railroad man’s arm, he -dragged him out of the hotel and almost flung him into the nearest -waiting taxicab. - -The order to the cab-driver ran to the Brewster National Bank; and two -minutes later Sprague, with Maxwell at his heels, shouldered his way -through a group of waiting customers to the president’s room. Gray -old David Kinzie was at his desk, and he nodded toward a door in the -opposite wall of the business office leading to the isolated directors’ -room. “Stillings and Hunniwell are in there,” he said, “and Starbuck -has gone after the culprit.” - -“And the other man?” queried Sprague sharply. - -“He didn’t want to come, but he will. He thinks it is a conference to -discuss the bank’s attitude, and he doesn’t want to commit himself. I -convinced him that he’d better come.” - -Again Sprague led the way, pausing at the inner door, however, to -push Maxwell in ahead of him. The two lawyers were sitting opposite -each other at the far end of the long committee table which filled -the centre of the room; and their greetings to the new-comers were -wordless. Maxwell had scarcely taken the chair next to Stillings -when the door opened again, this time to admit a stoop-shouldered, -thin-haired man whose face was even grayer than Banker Kinzie’s. This -last arrival was Judge Watson, and when he saw Sprague and Maxwell -he would have withdrawn, only Starbuck was behind him to make it -impossible. - -As before, the greetings were merely nodded; and a silence that could -be felt settled down upon the room. It was the judge who broke it first. - -“I think I have made a mistake, gentlemen,” he began. “I was expecting -to meet Mr.--ah--er--a gentleman who is not here.” - -The words were hardly out of his mouth before the door was opened for -the third time, and Dimmock, closely followed by Kinzie, entered. Like -the judge, the receiver would have withdrawn when he saw the group -around the table; but again Starbuck intervened, this time to shut the -door and to stand with his back against it. - -At the click of the latch, Sprague rose ponderously in his place at the -head of the table. - -“Sit down, Mr. Dimmock,” he directed. “This is a little business -meeting preliminary to another and more important one, and our time is -exceedingly limited.” - -The receiver looked sharply at the speaker. “My time is much more -limited than yours, Mr. Sprague,” he retorted crisply. “I shall have to -ask you to excuse me.” - -“Certainly,” said Sprague suavely, “if you wish it. But in that case, I -must tell you that Mr. Starbuck, who is standing just behind you, has -been properly sworn in as a United States deputy marshal, and he will -promptly take you into custody on a charge of conspiracy.” - -If the chemistry expert had suddenly rolled a bomb, with the fuse -lighted, down the length of the long table, the sensation could -scarcely have been greater or more startling. Dimmock took a backward -step and put up his hands as if to ward off a blow; and Hunniwell, the -imported attorney, sprang to his feet as if his chair had been suddenly -electrified. - -“What’s this?” he stormed. “This is not a court of law! I demand that -that door be opened! We cannot be held in duress!” - -“Sit down!” said Sprague shortly. “Mr. Dimmock is your client, and -you are here, not to defend him, but to advise him. As to the duress -you’re so much afraid of, I’ll say this: I am going to make one short -statement of facts. After you have heard it, if you and your client -wish to withdraw, the door will be opened.” - -“I--I am ill,” said the judge weakly, and he made a motion to rise from -his chair. Kinzie grimly poured out a glass of water from the pitcher -on the table and gave it to him without comment, while Dimmock took the -chair Starbuck was offering him and sat down. - -“I’ll be very brief, gentlemen,” Sprague went on, taking out his watch -and laying it on the table. “The facts are these. There has been a -conspiracy entered into for the purpose of depriving the stockholders -of the railroad known as the Nevada Short Line of their property under -a form of law. That purpose has apparently succeeded, but I have -here”--taking a packet of papers from his pocket--“documentary evidence -inculpating various and sundry persons who figure as the conspirators. -Three of these persons are here in this room. In another room, namely, -in Judge Walsh’s chambers in the Federal Building, there is waiting -another and quite informal gathering: it is composed of the leading -members of the Bar Association of the Timanyoni District, and it is -presided over by Judge Walsh. It is assembled to prevent, if possible, -one of the greatest scandals that has ever threatened the fair name of -the courts of this State.” - -“I object!” shouted Hunniwell, struggling to his feet again; and this -time Sprague pushed him back into his chair without ceremony. - -“To this statement of fact,” the self-appointed chairman continued, -quite as if there had been no interruption, “we will add a demand and -impose an alternative. The demand is that the railroad be turned over -to its rightful owners at once. If it is not complied with, you, Judge -Watson, and you, Mr. Dimmock, and you, Mr. Hunniwell”--indicating -each in turn with a squarely pointed forefinger--“may choose your -alternative: which is to go with me to Judge Walsh’s chambers, where I -shall lay before the gentlemen there assembled this packet of evidence.” - -“It’s a bluff!” yelled the attorney for the defence. “Do you think -we’re going to be taken in by any such flim-flam as that? We’ll call -your bluff, you damned amateur! You don’t dare to show up that evidence -here!” - -Sprague looked down with a good-natured grin upon the red-headed -lawyer. Then he dropped the packet of papers on the table in front of -Hunniwell. - -“I’ll stay with you,” he said quietly. “Read for yourself. Those are -only copies, however. The originals are locked up in Judge Walsh’s -safe.” - -Hunniwell ran through the papers hurriedly and the color came and -went in his florid face. Dimmock was staring straight ahead of him at -nothing, and his shapely fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the -arm of his chair. The judge had sunk into a shapeless heap in the easy -chair he had chosen and his face was ashen. - -At the end of his hasty examination of the papers, Hunniwell looked up, -and Stillings, who sat opposite, saw defeat in his eyes. - -“If I could speak to Mr. Dimmock and Judge Watson in private--” he -suggested; and Sprague nodded. There was a small ante-room at the right -of the larger directors’ room, and the three withdrew, the attorney -lending the judge a much-needed arm. - -Almost immediately the conferees returned, and Hunniwell acted as -spokesman. - -“You’ve turned the trick, Mr. Sprague, for this one time,” he said -briefly, “but only because one man--a sick man--cannot stand the -pressure--which is doubtless what you figured on. Judge Watson will -rescind his order at once, and the road will be turned over to its -former management--on one condition; that you surrender the original -papers which you say are locked up in Judge Walsh’s safe.” - -“No,” said Sprague instantly. “The condition does not stand. Stillings, -get Judge Walsh on the ’phone, will you?” - -That was enough. Hunniwell quickly withdrew the condition; or, rather, -he modified it, lawyer-wise. - -“Never mind,” he cut in hastily. “We’ll waive that, with this -proviso--that you’ll put the papers into Mr. Kinzie’s hands, to be -destroyed in the presence of such witnesses as we each may choose, -after we shall have proved that we have acted in good faith. Do you -agree to that?” - -Sprague nodded, and Starbuck stepped aside and opened the door leading -out through the banker’s office. At the upper end of the table, Maxwell -and Stillings and the gray-faced bank president were all trying to -shake hands with Sprague at one and the same moment; and when Hunniwell -had led the tremulous judge away, Dimmock walked the length of the -table and took his turn. Stillings, being Western-bred, anticipated -violence; but instead of falling upon the big-bodied ex-athlete, -Dimmock, too, held out his hand. - -“Mr. Sprague, you’ve outgeneraled us,” he said, with more frankness -than his hard-lined face and austere manner promised, even as a -possibility. “Diana tells me that you are wedded to your Government -position, and if that is so, you are simply throwing yourself away. -Come to New York, and we’ll put you in the way of doing something worth -while.” Then he added, with the charming smile he seemed to be able to -summon at will: “You played a finer game than I thought you would; in -fact, I thought I had trumped your ace to-day at the luncheon-table.” - -“You did--mighty nearly,” laughed the big one. And then to Stillings: -“Robert, will you go over to Judge Walsh’s chambers and tell the -gentlemen who are waiting there--well, tell them what is necessary. -You’ll know how.” - -But Dimmock was not to be so easily turned aside. - -“I say you played it fine,” he repeated, still amiable. “You knew that, -under the circumstances, the--er--sentimental circumstances, we may -call them--you couldn’t afford to go before that larger committee with -your evidence, Mr. Sprague.” - -Sprague’s mellow laugh rang in the empty room. - -“Just now I am the prisoner at the bar, Mr. Dimmock, and I’m not -obliged to incriminate myself,” he retorted jokingly. And at that the -three who remained went out through the banker’s office together. On -the sidewalk Dimmock paused for one other word; the word which had been -at the bottom of his friendly approach to Sprague. - -“Diana knows nothing of this?” he said. - -“Nothing more than you have told her,” said Sprague. - -“And that is less than nothing,” was the prompt return. After which -they separated, Dimmock going up the street toward Hunniwell’s hotel, -Maxwell hurrying off to the telegraph office to wire the good news to -Ford, and Sprague sauntering slowly back to the Hotel Topaz, wondering -if, by any hook or crook of good fortune, he should be lucky enough to -find Miss Diana Carswell disengaged and willing to accord him an hour -or so of an afternoon which was still young. - -It was in the evening of the same day, after Maxwell had been -reinstalled in his office by order of the court, and the summarily -discharged staff had been reinstated, that the superintendent turned -upon Sprague, who was sitting, as his evening custom was, in the -easiest of the office chairs, puffing at a black cigar, and with his -gaze fixed upon the disused gas chandelier marking the exact centre of -the ceiling. - -“How did you do it, Calvin?” came the abrupt demand from Maxwell’s -corner. “Did you really have any evidence against Miss Diana’s -step-father and her uncle?” - -The big-bodied man from Washington chuckled softly. - -“Oh, yes; I had the evidence. There was a hitch between Watson and -Dimmock, and they were both of them injudicious enough to send notes -back and forth; notes which, by the help of two good friends of yours -and mine, were intercepted, carefully copied, the originals preserved, -and the copies forwarded. It was a little off-color, but when you are -fighting the devil you can’t always stop to pick your weapons. Watson -was to have a Federal judgeship, and Big Money was to see that he got -it. The hitch came in reference to Watson’s leaving town. He was afraid -to go; afraid of public sentiment; and Dimmock was holding him on the -rack. I don’t know whether the evidence of the letters would have held -in an ordinary court, but I do know that I had Judge Walsh on my side.” - -Maxwell whirled around in his chair. - -“Sprague, did those letters incriminate Dimmock and Miss Diana’s uncle?” - -“Oh, don’t let’s say ‘incriminate’; let’s use the milder word, -‘inculpate’. Yes, I guess they did, Dick.” - -“Now I’ve got you!” snapped the square-shouldered one at the desk. “You -would never--never in this wide world--have let that evidence get out. -You know you wouldn’t!” - -The big man was grinning affably. “You’re only half right,” he -rejoined. “Up to luncheon-time to-day I meant to do it; I had it -framed up so that the uncle, who is really the high spellbinder of the -entire push, could slip out and the whole load would come down on Mr. -Dimmock’s shoulders. But that luncheon play queered me, and I had to -think quick to invent a new way out. It worked, and that’s all there is -to it; all but one little item--Miss Diana let me drive her out to Lake -Topaz this afternoon, and I stole your car to do it.” - -“No; there is one other little item,” said Maxwell, rising and closing -his desk upon the evening’s work. “I wired Ford, as you know, and I -gave you the credit that belonged to you--which you may not know. Our -New York crowd is properly grateful, and they promptly wired Kinzie. I -don’t know how you’re fixed, Calvin, but I guess this won’t come amiss -if you’re going to try to marry Diana Carswell,” and he handed Sprague -a slip of paper which bore Banker Kinzie’s promise to pay ten thousand -dollars to the order of one Calvin Sprague. - -Sprague took the draft, glanced at the figure of it, and handed it back -with another of his deep-chested laughs. - -“Where on top of earth did you get the idea that I needed money, Dick?” -he asked. “Why, Lord love you! didn’t you know that my California -uncle, Uncle William, died five years ago and left me more money than -I know what to do with? It’s the solemn fact, and I’m working on the -Government job purely and simply because I don’t know how to loaf -comfortably--never did. Of course, I can’t quite match up with the -Carswell millions; but if that were the only thing in the way----” - -“What is the other thing?” demanded Maxwell, in mock solicitude. - -Sprague had risen and was stretching his arms over his head and yawning -sleepily. - -“If you’d see me step on the scales, you wouldn’t ask. I’m such a whale -of a man, Dick! And, say: did you notice her at table to-day? ‘Pretty,’ -you’d say, but that isn’t the word; it’s ‘dainty’, dainty in every look -and move and touch. Imagine a girl like that saying, ‘Yes, honey,’ to a -great big overgrown stale foot-ball artist like me! Let’s go over to -the house and smoke a bedtime. Nobody loves me, and I’m going out in -the garden to eat----” - -“That is what makes you so frightfully fat--you eat too many -of the fuzzy kind,” laughed the snappy little superintendent -unsympathetically. And then he flicked the switch of the office lights -and they went out together into the calm September night. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - -Changes have been made to make spelling consistent across this ebook, -as follows: - - --“Wire Devil” has added a hyphen on page 133; - --A hyphen has been added to “wrecking train” on page 53; - --“Up stairs” has been converted into one word on page 352; - --A hyphen was added to “payrolls” on page 30; - --Hyphens have been added to the word “hillside” on pages 319 and 321; - --The hyphen in “cut-out” has been removed on page 312; - --A hyphen has been added to “midday” on page 273; - --The word “mine-owners” has had the hyphen deleted on page 86; - --A hyphen has been inserted in “notebook” on page 54; - --A hyphen has been inserted in “Quick step” on page 128; - --A hyphen has been added to the word “trainload” on page 374; - --The hyphen in “bed-time” has been removed on page 406; - --The hyphen in “east-bound” has been removed on pages 90 and 336; - --A hyphen has been added to “carload” on page 301; - --The hyphen has been removed in “break-neck” on page 111; - --The hyphen has been removed in “main-line” on pages 16, 113 and 351; - --The hyphen has been removed in “rear-platform” on page 276; - --The hyphen has been removed in “high-line” on page 203; - --A hyphen has been added to “real estate” on page 223; - --The hyphen has been removed in “one-o’clock” on page 387; - --The hyphen has been removed in “fast-mail” on page 13; - --The hyphen has been removed in “kentucky-colonel” on page 370; - --Hyphens have been removed in “rank-and-file” on page 383; - --The hyphen has been removed in “second-section” on page 197; - --A hyphen has been added to “motive power” on page 228; - --The hyphen has been removed in “safety-switches” on pages - 177 and 181; - --A hyphen has been added to “street crossing” on page 162; - --The hyphen has been removed in “managing-editor” on page 282; - --A hyphen has been added to “scraper teams” on page 346; - --The hyphen in “shop-track” has been removed on page 249; - --The hyphen in “Big-Nine” has been removed on page 249; - --The hyphen in “telegraph-office” has been removed on page 402; - --A hyphen has been added to “early morning” on page 263; - --The hyphen in “desk-end” has been removed on page 366; - --A hyphen has been added to “yard limits” on page 327; - --The hyphen in “hall-door” has been removed on page 102; - --The hyphen in “west-end” has been removed on page 124; - --The hyphen in “summing-up” has been removed on page 370; - --The hyphen in “false-alarm” has been removed on page 29; - --The hyphen in “off-time” has been removed on page 124; - --The hyphen in “make-shift” has been removed on page 317; - --The hyphen in “cow-punch” has been removed on page 320; - -transcriber notes that this list, while extensive, may not cover all -inconsistent hyphenation in this e-book. - -Spelling of “reconnoissance” on page 314 corrected to “reconnaissance”. - -The variant spelling “focussed” has been retained. - -Where illustrations occurred in the body of a paragraph, they have been -moved to avoid interrupting the text’s flow. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC SPRAGUE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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